Get Out: Summer AcroBATics

Sometimes, nothing beats tossing a ball around after dinner during summer.

This is bonus time. It's still light, but it's getting a little cooler, the grass feels good underfoot. Day begins to give way to night. The fireflies wink in the tall grass, the tree frogs start to sing. And as the sun sets, the birds get a little more active...wait, is that a bird? No, it's a bat!

Awe, 'Lil Myotis!

Awe, Little Myotis! So cute! Little brown bats--our very own natural mosquito repellent, our furry line of defense against the smallest blood suckers--take wing at dusk. 'Lil Myotis is the most common bat in Minnesota. At our house, bat watching is a favorite pastime. I'll admit, sometimes they seem to swoop a little too low, a bit too close for comfort, but their acroBATics are truly impressive. Last winter, on a trip to Vallodolid, we spent the last hours of 2015 beside a pool, watching a fruit bat skim the surface for little sips of water. Bats are cool and you don't have to go to Mexico to go a little batty.

hoary bat taking care of business

Take a walk at dusk and look up. Street lights that attract insects at night might also attract their predators. Any city park is likely to play host to hunting bats. Lucky for us, Minnesota bats are insectivores-- they eat the things that like to sip on us. Suburban back yards and country meadows are also excellent places to watch bats do their predator thing. Go before the light goes, and you'll see some very fancy flying. Be brave-- bats are so good at echo locating, that even in hot pursuit of that moth flying near your left ear, they won't bump into you. It might feel like a near miss to you, but to the bat it's all fly-boy style skill and keen calculation.

eastern red: hanging out, waiting for dinner time

Common bats to look for in Minnesota:

• little myotis/little brown bat
• northern myotis
• big brown bat

Less common:

• silver-haired bat
• eastern red bat
• tri-colored bat/ eastern pipistrelle (only 2/10 of an ounce!)
• hoary bat (this fatty weighs in at almost an ounce)

Silver-haired, hoary and eastern reds are solitary woodland bats, who wing out of here in winter for points south. Little and big browns along with northerns and pipistrelles are diehards-- they find a mine up on the range, a nice warm cave or your attic to hibernate in.

So long, sucker!

One cute little myotis can eat up to 1000 mosquitoes in a single hour and she can live for forty years! If I've done any justice to the math, one little brown might dispose of 87,6000,000 mosquitoes in her lifetime!

These fantastic skeeter eaters are currently in danger. White-nose Syndrome is a mysterious fungus that is killing bats. To learn more about White Nose in MN, read on.

Do your part to save our skeeter eaters-- don't kill bats, admire their high flying skill and let them hibernate in peace.

More on MN bats