When the Bats Return

When the Bats Return

By David Olert

It was Sunday morning and I was sitting in my car nursing a Starbucks coffee when I noticed a low flying hawk with an object dangling in clenched talons. A rat? A ground squirrel? I looked more closely and saw that the hawk had found something more important than food. It held a stick that it would take to its nesting site. Through the windshield of a warm car, I witnessed this prelude to Spring, a season that, for now, would do no more than peak tentatively from under warm covers on a cold February morning.

Even in these winter months, the Southern California chaparral pulsates with sound. Listening works well for me. Just as the noise of over-thinking an issue can drown out understanding, noise, whether external or internal, can drown out the vibrant sounds of the natural world around me. I understand this because many of my encounters with nature have resulted from the simple act of listening. A tiny hummingbird can be hard to spot but the loud chirping and wing beating are unmistakable.

Not long ago, I was walking through a watershed full of bird life when I heard the screech of a Red Tailed Hawk high above me. I can still picture the smile on the little girl's face when I pointed out the hawk to her as she walked with her father. They would never have seen it otherwise. Later, I stopped to listen to water from a recent rain as it dripped onto the leaf covered floor of a thick oak grove. Framed by silence, the dripping was distinctly audible. The canopy of branches overhead and the surrounding hillsides absorbed outside noise before it could invade the quietude of the cloistered environment. As I settled into the quiet, I noticed a loud buzzing, the sound of bees on a bloom-filled shrub. But I was in the permanently shaded, bloom-free world of a thick oak grove. I followed the buzzing to a large hole in an old oak and saw a constant stream of bees entered and exiting their hive.

I knew where the bees were going. Every sunflower shrub is full of bees this time of year, foretelling the many flowers and bees to come. The chaparral is also dotted with early flowering Purple Nightshade, the white trumpets of Morning Glory blooms and the bright pink of Prickly Phlox. Back out in the open air, I encountered another spring sound as a swarm of small bugs surrounded me when I stopped on the trail. Dusk was quickly approaching and I wondered if the sudden increase in bugs meant that bats would soon return to the twilight air.

I walked along a tree lined creek and then ascended to the hilltop overlooking the canyon that meandered into the distance. As I was waiting for the sun to set, a woman climbed the trail with a German Sheppard who labored with advanced age. When they stopped to rest I said "Your dog will be sore tomorrow," to which she replied "She'll definitely need Advil." Even though the big dog appeared harmless enough, I approached her slowly with the back of my hand forward. After she sniffed and was comfortable with me, I further assured her with an enthusiastic "Good Girl," and the woman and I could now carry on a relaxed conversation. We chatted a little and it was obvious from her knowledge of the park that she walked there a lot. We both knew this particular spot to be a good place to end a hike and watch bats hunt. I remarked that it had been a long time since I had seen them there. As my fellow hiker and I quietly surveyed the valley below, perhaps she had the same thought as I did. When will the bats come back? I pointed out a tree that a hawk occasionally hunted from and, as we turned up the trail heading back to the parking lot, she said "Thanks, I'll have to watch for that."

We walked the trail talking about what we had seen in the park, "You saw a bobcat? Have you ever seen a mountain lion?" My answer "No" led to a conversation about mountain lions requiring more contiguous open space than that provided by this suburbia surrounded enclave. In a moment of quiet, I returned to thoughts of bats dipping, veering, climbing, and diving, performing their unfettered dance, silently pursuing prey that only a bat can perceive in a darkening sky. I thought about their behavior and what that might tell me. The California Myosis, like the bats that I have observed on many summer evenings, flies erratically as it chases moths over a stream, preferring to hunt between canyon walls like those enclosing the valley my walking partner and I had just ascended from. If the bats that flew this canyon were California Myosis, it could be a month or so before I would see them again. This species of bat hibernates to conserve energy as there is very little for them to eat in the winter, even in Southern California.

But the bugs are coming back, along with the flowers and the bees and the simple pleasure of standing on a hilltop trail, looking over a peaceful valley watching bats hunt in the gentle light of the setting sun. Spring is teasing. I know she will be here to stay when the bats return.