This evening at dusk, a pretty one too, I saw small bats, pipistrelles I guess, four times fluttering up and down the gardens behind the house we are in at the moment, 300 yards or so south of Notting Hill Gate. Perhaps there were only two of them but I saw one hunting in the gardens four times. Good for the soul, the sight of a bat or two.
I wonder where they live though. Perhaps in an absentee Russian oligarch's upper rooms. I can see five houses only 40 yards away through the thick undergrowth in the gardens behind this house. Three of them have lights on in the halls and staircases after dark. In five days here I haven't seen a single human being in any of them, although I heard a noisy party further down towards Kensington High St last night.
A week or so ago though my granddaughter's cat killed a long-eared bat down in Surrey. I suppose the bat flew carelessly low and the cat got it with a lucky swipe. Undoubtedly illegal and the cat deserves an ASBO or clip round the ear, except that it wouldn't understand. The late bat was a splendid creature, poor little devil. My daughter took a photo of the corpse.
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Bats new
Bats new