Trilobite

The time and date of my convocation was just announced. It’s on June 21 at 10:00am. That’s the same day as the summer solstice. There is a website with more information about the ceremony, but most of the pages just say “Information coming soon.”

I don’t know how many tickets I’ll be allowed, but I know in the past students have always been running around trying to buy extra tickets for all of their family members to see them graduate.

Yesterday Celine and I came home and were out on the sidewalk with our keys in hand, about to open the front door, when I noticed a tiny brown nose sticking out from under the door. It was the bat! We looked through the window and saw that we wouldn’t be able to open the door without squishing him, so Celine had to poke at him with a piece of paper through the crack under the door, trying to make him move. He didn’t like that at all, and screeched at us quite a bit. Eventually, Celine managed to get him out of the way, we scooted Banjo upstairs, and had a closer look at the little guy.

He was clearly exhausted and could hardly move. He also seemed pretty stressed out. Celine and I felt bad for leaving him trapped in the hallway for so long. We should have done something as soon as we discovered him two weeks ago, but I thought he was fine as long as he was sleeping.

We called the Kingston Humane Society for help and were told that bats don’t hibernate, and that the best thing for us to do would be to put the bat outside and let it fly away. I told the guy I didn’t want to do that, and finally he gave me the phone number of the Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre. Celine gave the bat some water from a cotton swab while I talked to Sue Meech at the Wildlife Centre, and within an hour we were driving to Napanee to drop off the bat. When we got there Sue told us the guy at the Humane Society was wrong on both counts and if we had listened to him the bat would be dead by now.

Sue told us our bat was a Big Brown Bat, he was male, and that this was probably his first winter. She fed him some cat hairball formula and he drank about 2ml of it, even after all the water Celine gave him. He was thirsty! (Sue said the hairball formula is full of vitamins and molasses, and she has never seen any animal of any species refuse it!). After he finished drinking he weighed 18 grams, so we figure he was about 15 grams when we found him.

Sue said she’ll keep feeding him for about a week until he reaches 20 grams, then she’ll let him hibernate until the spring. She says she wants to release him near our apartment when the weather is warm enough. She got very excited when she found out Celine is certified as a veterinary assistant and has been vaccinated against rabies, and she asked Celine to volunteer at the centre!

Photos: tiny eyes, resting, smiling, ready to travel.

A couple days ago our hibernating bat woke up and decided to move to a more comfortable spot. [full body, face]. The trouble is, now he’s a bit too close to the ground. We warned the electricians not to disturb him, but we’re still worried that he’s going to get crushed by somebody accidentally. Or maybe some random person will wander in off the street, as they are prone to do, and freak out about seeing a bat.

I read on the internet that if you disturb a hibernating bat, it will spend the same amount of energy flying around as it would have spent hibernating for 60 days. So I’m afraid that if we move him he will starve before the spring comes. I sent an email to Bat Conservation International and asked them for some advice.

UofT finally posted the last of my marks from last term, and I passed everything. Woo hoo! I’ve finally earned my university degree! The graduation ceremony is in June.

We have a hibernating bat in our hallway. At first we thought it was dead, and possibly trapped in some insulation foam. I climbed up on a ladder to remove the body and when I touched it, the little guy sleepily lifted his head and glared at me! I think he’s a little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), or possibly a big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus). I hope he has a relaxing winter.

School is finally over and I am back home in Kingston. I’ve got three weeks with nothing to do but relax, and then it’s back to Toronto for my final term. I’m hoping to graduate at Christmas!

I really liked today’s spamusement cartoon. It’s amazing how expressive the faces on those line drawings can be.

I was just looking at some satellite images (yes, I do that for fun) and I decided that Potspoon Lake looks more like an electric guitar than a spoon. Anyway, we’re back to using Blogger again. I’m sure everybody has heard way too much of this drama already, so I won’t bore you with the details.

I’ll post pictures from Pittsburgh tomorrow.

[Update: Tomorrow has come and gone and the pictures are still not here. I’ll get to it soon, honest! Friday is the last day of term, so I’ll try to do it this weekend. But next week is exams, so I’m not making any promises. Here are a three animal pictures to tide you over.]

The weather is beautiful in Pittsburgh today. This morning I vacuumed up the leaves at the bottom of the the pool, which I enjoyed for some strange reason. I guess doing chores isn’t so bad if it means you can go swimming afterwards.

It’s 5:00am and I am in the computer lab at school trying to finish my homework before the long weekend. In 24 hours I’ll be fast asleep in a big comfy bed hundreds of kilometers from here. It sure will be nice to sleep on something besides the horrible vinyl cot in my dorm room. I’m surprised I don’t dream about being in the waiting room at the dentist every night, sleeping on that thing.

Anyway, I’m going to visit Peter and Gina in Pittsburgh. It will be good to see everybody again. It’s been a long time. Celine and I are hoping to go the zoo for a private tour while we’re down there. I hope that works out. And Gina’s got lots of other activities planned for us in case we get bored with lounging by the pool.