Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a 7th grade student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Her family cheerfully hosted this wild colony for years.

Hi everyone! It’s been another cold week around here. Personally, I love the snow days! I haven’t been to school for a whole week since the middle of December! For me, winter is awesome, but the little bats are having trouble surviving all this cold weather. Save Lucy has been getting a lot of bats lately. One little bat is named 2015-20 (most bats get a number instead of a name). He is a very young big brown bat. He weighed only 9.2 grams when he got to Save Lucy, and was thin and hungry. He’s such a tiny little guy that his 'normal' weight is only about 11 grams. A 'regular' sized big brown can be up to 18 grams (which is only about 7 pennies!). Little 2015-20 seems to be doing well and will hopefully be healthy enough to be released when we finally get some warm weather around here.

One reason Save Lucy is getting so many little bats this winter is because there were a lot of late pups last summer. They had enough time to learn to hunt and put on a little fat, but still aren’t able to make it through this crazy winter without some help. We haven’t had any really warm days yet, so there aren’t any yummy moths out for the bats to eat. All the water is frozen too, so the little bats are hungry and thirsty and can’t go back to sleep.

It’s supposed to get warmer in the next few days, so hopefully things will start looking better for the bats and all the little critters trying to survive outside. Until things improve, please remember not to touch or bother a little bat if you see one in trouble. Just call your friendly neighborhood bat rehabilitator and they can tell you what to do.

[You can find bat rehabilitators with Bat World Sanctuary's Locate a Rescuer service or at Animal Help Now --Ed.]