The Story of Petronella the Pipistrelle – Part 1

status viatoris – being ‘on the way’/being in a state of pilgrimage

Our tale begins one warm summer evening, about three and a half weeks ago, when Evil Kitty inadvertently alerted me that she had had a successful hunt.

I donned my cape, yanked a pair of tighty whities over my trousers, and in full Sainte Frances of Aseesaw mode, hotfooted it outside (yet again) to see what the little bugger tinker was torturing.

A rather small bat...

The creature I found was in a pitiful state, so I gathered it up and rushed it inside to check its vitals. It was still breathing, albeit shallowly, so I kept it warm until it started to show signs of recovery from the trauma.

After several hours of snoozing on my t-shirt, the Pipistrelle bat (interestingly the word for bat in Italian is pipistrello) perked up considerably, so, as I had done with the previous one, I took it out to the balcony to see if it was feeling up to tootling back off about its business.

Hanging from my finger, it thoughtfully sniffed the air before launching itself into the darkness and  promptly plummeting three storeys, landing with an audible thud on the concrete below.

Cue a rather panicky pyjama-clad dash down the stairs in search of a potentially dead bat, with only the light of a mobile phone to guide me. Luckily find it I did, and astonishingly still very much alive, although visibly wondering what it could possibly have done to deserve such a punishing evening.

So that, Ladies and Gents, is how I wound up sharing my bedroom with a bat in a

I are not related to Yoda, honest...

sheet-lined (apologies to my landlady, all bat-stained bedlinen will be replaced) box with breathe holes in the lid.

The next day, having tried unsuccessfully to tempt it with a catfood  and egg yolk concoction (it quite rightly turned its nose up at such foulness, and instead tramped stickily across the spoon, unwittingly transforming itself into an even more succulent morsel for any mog lucky enough to recapture it) I gave up and went down to the vet for some expert advice.

Enamoured vet immortalizing bat in photo...

The appointment stretched for a seemingly interminable hour and a half, as vets, vets’ assistants and indeed everyone else in the building came rushing in to coo over my ‘pipistrellina‘ (for it transpired that she was a indeed a Petronella, and not a Percival) and take her picture.

The verdict was that she had one very bruised wing, but without an obvious fracture. This was good news, providing that the wing in question healed satisfactorily.

Petronella soon tired of the limelight...

So with antibiotics in my bag, and the good wishes of all and sundry ringing in our ears, we set off to the nearest fishing shop for a bit of grub. Literally.

During my childhood bat rehabilitation experiences (having a couple of Dr Doolittles for parents leads to unimaginable excitements of that nature) we had always fed our guests mealworms – camole di farina. Unfortunately I was only able to get waxworms (plain old camole) which although apparently scrumptious, are full of fat and not much else.

Nothing like a waxworm to get your juices flowing. If you are a bat, that is...

Petronella, not being a bat of calorie-counting tendencies, did not raise a murmur of complaint at this. Instead she got straight into the serious business of building up her strength.

And for 10 days that is pretty much all she did.

Every evening at about 21h I would wake her up, give her a drink of water from the pipette, and then painstakingly cut up the revoltingly sticky waxworms, posting them section by section into her constantly gaping mouth.

I are always hungry... Feed meeeeeeeeee!

Gluing up my fingers, and staining every surface in the vicinity in the process, with the peculiar black substance they produced when butchered.

And when she proclaimed herself replete; ie stopped launching herself, jaws snapping, at my wormy fingers if I dared to tarry in filling the ever gaping cake hole, I settled her upside down on the curtain to stretch her wings and carry out her toilette.

Extending her uninjured wing...

We proceeded thus with our little routine, until I got fed up with cutting up the waxworms and instead made her hunt them whole; racing across the bedsheets, nose whiffling, emitting squeaks of bloodlust as she ran them to ground one by one.

But eventually we both had to face up to the fact that if she didn’t start flying again, her future would sadly be very uncertain.

Not extending her injured wing...

A little bit of grooming goes a long way...

She couldn’t rely on endless waxworms and a nice warm box forever, and I really had to get my life (or at least my evenings) back.

The time had come to up the anti, and seriously work on getting Petronella airborne once again and the onus was on me to make sure our goal was attained…

This Status Viatoris, puffed up with importance at her batular responsibilities, in Italy.

Advertisement