Birds, Bats and Baby Rats

8/8/2019 Birds, Bats and Baby Rats

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/birds-bats-and-baby-rats 1/4

Birds, Bats and Baby Rats

For my entire lifetime, I have been the perpetual nurturer. Even as a

child, I was always taking in birds who were injured, or baby birds who had

fallen out of their nests. As an adult, I am fully cognizant of the fact that

these rescue missions usually don¶t have happy endings. Even knowing that,

I still will try to help any animal, who needs to be nursed back to health.

Back in the late seventies, when I had my glass studio, a desperate

pigeon showed up one day, on my front stoop. He had somehow been

injured, and was unable to fly. Although he couldn¶t speak, he stared into my

eyes, and clearly sent me the message, ³Please help me.´ I kept that pigeon

at my shop, for many years. On the days the shop was closed, I drove into

town from our farm, to feed him and change his water.



When my sons were young, and we lived out on the farm, there were

numerous incidents of animals needing help. A groundhog, who had been

wounded by dogs, was my patient for about a week. I took him to work,

where I was teaching at a gifted center. He stayed in a box, in the workroom

between our two classrooms. I didn¶t mention to the students that I had him,

not wanting them to disturb him. One little student nearly fainted, when she

walked into the workroom and saw him. She was not expecting to encounter

a big, furry creature.

One summer night, inside our fairly primitive little farmhouse, a bat

found its way inside. I ducked from him, as he flew over my head in the

hallway. Before we knew what had happened, he had become plastered to

the sticky strip of fly tape, hanging in the bathroom. His thin, delicate wings

were spread out, firmly attached to the gummy surface of the tape.

What a nightmare! I have always had a bit of a phobia about bats. At

camp, when we were out in our johnboat at dusk, they used to divebomb our

heads. I could never have imagined, that I would have such an

up-close-and-personal, one-on-one encounter, with a bat.

I took the little, brown, entangled victim outside, and placed him on

our round, white patio table. Under the light from a hanging mechanic¶s

lamp, I worked on freeing him, until daylight came the next morning.



Fortunately, alcohol dissolved and removed the glue from the fly tape. Very

carefully, and extremely cautiously, I pulled the tape off of the delicate wing

tissue, a tiny bit at a time. Then I took cotton balls, saturated with alcohol,

and wiped the wings off. Many hours later, the stickiness was completely

removed. The frightened little bat was as uncomfortable as I was, with this

bizarre situation. He never attempted to bite me, but he frequently turned his

head towards my direction, and hissed. It was as if he were voicing his

disapproval, of what I had done to him.

Since it was already daylight, by the time I had finished getting all of

the tape and glue off of his wings, I placed him in our root cellar. It was

pitch black, inside it, when the door was closed. When evening came, we

opened the door to the cellar. We watched, with great hope and anticipation,

then jubilation, as the little bat flew effortlessly, up to the sky, where he

belonged. That was indeed a rare, happy ending.

Out of all of the farm critters I encountered, the one I became most

attached to was a baby rat. One of the cats had caught it, brought it inside,

then placed it at my feet, as though she was presenting me with a gift. I had

seen plenty of baby mice before at camp, but this little one-inch baby was a

rat. No question about it. He had a much longer snout than a baby mouse.

I named him Oscar, because the name seemed to fit. He became my



constant companion for a little more than a week. Oscar cuddled up in the

palm of my hand, and accompanied me everywhere I went. He was so small,

no one could tell that he was there. On Saturday, I was shopping with my

sister, and took Oscar with us. My sister had run into a drug store, while he

and I waited out in the car. All of a sudden, his breathing became noticeably

shallow. I was so saddened, when he inhaled such a huge, deep, final breath,

then exhaled a loud, long breath, that seemed impossible for such a tiny

creature.

I think some of my fellow teachers were beginning to question my

sanity at that point. Several voiced their confusion and disapproval, about

my wanting to save a baby rat. Too bad Oscar didn¶t have a fluff tail, like a

squirrel. Then, they would have thought he was cute, and worthy of living.

Documents

Birds, Bats and Baby Rats