Ever taken flight because of a flight?
Silly me. I did yesterday evening.
I had been knitting in the kitchen when suddenly from the corner of my eye I felt I saw something flying there. My first reaction was to question this perception. Apart from an odd fly there’s hardly anything flying around in kitchens at this time of the year, is there?
Then I saw it again. I knew it wasn’t a bird. It looked dark in the artificial light, and of the size of a large butterfly. It wasn’t a moth; it didn’t fly like a moth. But butterflies at this time of the year in the kitchen?
These thoughts went through my mind in an instant.
Now, I have experienced this flight instinct before, when something small and unidentified is flying or moving unexpectedly and suddenly around me.
Like once when I sat on the couch in the living room, something tiny suddenly appeared hopping around my feet, which turned out to be a tiny froglet.
I’m meanwhile used to adult frogs in the house. They are easily identified. However, there was this incident several years ago when I was sitting at the breakfast table and saw a heap on the kitchen floor, and on first sight I thought it might have been the produce of one of the dogs at a most inappropriate place.
But it turned out to be a frog couple, a heap indeed - of two frogs.
Anyway, yesterday I dropped my knitting and fled the kitchen, on foot, of course. Closing the door behind me, and getting my husband to help checking this Unidentified Flying Object out.
After some more flights around the kitchen it seemed to have vanished. – Had it flown out of the window, which was now opened?
No, my husband detected it clinging to the wall under the ceiling in a dark corner of the kitchen. He could easily take it and put it on the outside windowsill, from where the tiny bat flew into the night outside.
I’m no expert on bats, as you can guess, but given its small size and appearance at this time of the year it was most certainly a Pipistrelle. Expert comments welcome here.
No pictures taken. The incident was so unexpected that I didn’t think of cameras at all.
Silly me. I did yesterday evening.
I had been knitting in the kitchen when suddenly from the corner of my eye I felt I saw something flying there. My first reaction was to question this perception. Apart from an odd fly there’s hardly anything flying around in kitchens at this time of the year, is there?
Then I saw it again. I knew it wasn’t a bird. It looked dark in the artificial light, and of the size of a large butterfly. It wasn’t a moth; it didn’t fly like a moth. But butterflies at this time of the year in the kitchen?
These thoughts went through my mind in an instant.
Now, I have experienced this flight instinct before, when something small and unidentified is flying or moving unexpectedly and suddenly around me.
Like once when I sat on the couch in the living room, something tiny suddenly appeared hopping around my feet, which turned out to be a tiny froglet.
I’m meanwhile used to adult frogs in the house. They are easily identified. However, there was this incident several years ago when I was sitting at the breakfast table and saw a heap on the kitchen floor, and on first sight I thought it might have been the produce of one of the dogs at a most inappropriate place.
But it turned out to be a frog couple, a heap indeed - of two frogs.
Anyway, yesterday I dropped my knitting and fled the kitchen, on foot, of course. Closing the door behind me, and getting my husband to help checking this Unidentified Flying Object out.
After some more flights around the kitchen it seemed to have vanished. – Had it flown out of the window, which was now opened?
No, my husband detected it clinging to the wall under the ceiling in a dark corner of the kitchen. He could easily take it and put it on the outside windowsill, from where the tiny bat flew into the night outside.
I’m no expert on bats, as you can guess, but given its small size and appearance at this time of the year it was most certainly a Pipistrelle. Expert comments welcome here.
No pictures taken. The incident was so unexpected that I didn’t think of cameras at all.
That made me laugh a lot!
ReplyDeleteYour house is a veritable nature reserve! Frogs??
Mind you, in a house I lived in I had a visiting bat who used to come in and fly around my sitting room and kitchen and hang from my christmas lights. It took a long time to catch him, and on one occasion it only happened because my cat jumped in the air and took a great swipe at him, knocking him down! (He was safely gathered in a tea towel and left outside, only to come back in the next day)
My bat wasn't back yet!
ReplyDeleteFrogs are indeed quite common in my house. Don't know why that is.