By Mary Young
They’ve gotten a “bat” rap for centuries, those little “mice with wings” that flutter in the night sky on cool summer evenings. (Note: bats aren’t mice, just little, furry and cute like them). But instead of fearing bats, people should be singing their praises. First off, they’re mammals that fly! Can those other cool guys like elk and mountain lions do that? With wings made not of feathers but of skin stretched between their fingers, arm bones and body, bats actually manipulate their wings and fly in a different way than birds. That’s why when we spot them overhead against the night sky, they seem to flutter erratically rather than fly with the rhythmic flight of birds. Compare the flight of a bug-chasing bat with that of a flying-insect eater like a swallow. The swallow is all elegant, smooth wheel and dive. The bat frantically spins left, pivots right, up, down, gotcha!
Bats are the good guys, out on the job every night gobbling up mosquitoes, moths, beetles and other insects that are often pesky pests to humans. A single little brown bat—a common bat in Douglas County and statewide—can gobble 1,000 mosquitoes in a night! A Mexican free-tailed bat colony in Texas was estimated to consume 220 tons of insects in a month. The job bats do in pest control saves humans the cost and poison load on the environment of using tons of pesticides.
Colorado is home to 20 species of bats. And while you don’t need a reason to enjoy watching these wondrous animals, International Bat Appreciation Day, April 17th, is the day set aside each year to say “Yay, we love bats!” You can also do that throughout the summer in most DLC open spaces.