It was dark by the time our friends arrived for dinner. They’d never been to our house before so we showed them around. “Do you get a good view from up here?” asked Judy when we got to the upstairs bedroom.
I opened the sliding door onto the deck and we walked out to stand at the edge of the railing, breathing in the fresh night air. Suddenly, with a whoosh, a large creature flew up and over our heads. “What on earth was that?” I wondered.
Its wingbeat was far too noisy for an owl, I reasoned. Then we saw more of them, twisting and turning up and around the trees, and realised they must have been bats. We’re used to seeing bats in the early evening, but they’re usually small ones that flit around chasing bugs. These were much bigger and the only flying animals I could think of to match that size would be fruit bats.
Checking my trusty field guide, I found that Egyptian fruit bats frequent our area, roosting in caves on Table Mountain during the day in large colonies. At night, they travel several kilometres in search of a suitable tree, where they no doubt gorge themselves silly.
I’d never been aware of their presence before, but it made sense that they were visiting our garden. At this time of year, our waterberry trees are bursting with plump, deep-red berries and we have unknowingly created Bat Paradise.
I had a chance to have a good look at fruit bats a couple of years ago, when we were in the Kruger Park. While entering a public loo at one of the bushveld camps, I disturbed a group of them roosting under the eaves in a secluded corner of what was obviously a little-visited facility. Most of them flew up into the nearby trees and settled on high branches to hang like dried out bunches of leaves. Annoyed that I’d left my binoculars in the car, I gave up trying to make out their features.
Then I turned back towards the eaves to see a lone bat hanging face-down and staring at me with unblinking eyes. I stood still for several minutes, mesmerised by a face that looked for all the world like that of a small dog. It reminded me of a miniature version of Rhea, our ridgeback, lying upside down with her long snout pointing out and watching my every move.
Now, when I open our bedroom curtains in the morning to reveal dark-red fruity splashes across our plate-glass windows, I can picture exactly what the culprits look like. I’m thankful they’re not as big as Rhea – and that our house is made of facebrick rather than plastered and painted. That sort of clean-up job would be guaranteed to send anyone batty.
