The outdoor animals have been behaving, except for those dratted squirrels stealing not only the bird food last week but also the suet cage – what do they do with those things, anyway? I never even find the chain, much less the mesh cage.

This visitor, later identified as a silver-haired bat, was returned to the wild after showing up under our wine refrigerator. Photo by Meg Hibbert

I wasn’t prepared for our latest houseguest, however. The cats evidently knew he (she? I didn’t check) was with us one cold morning last week, and were most interested in a plant caddy in a corner of the dining room. I figured they were sniffing out one of the white-footed mice that love to spend the winter with us when they can.

But I was totally unprepared when I found Jade, the Himalayan, crouched in front of the small wine refrigerator in the living room that night. The face peeking out from under the cooler was darker brown than a field mouse and it was making clicking noises.

Yep, a little brown bat. By the time I had snagged a plastic container from the kitchen and returned with the idea of moving the cooler, the bat had scooted out and was tip-toeing toward the door.

I say tip-toeing. I’m not sure how you describe the motion a bat makes when it is walking on its little bat feet instead of flying. I’m not certain the bat could fly, especially after it had evidently been in the house for a day or maybe more without whatever bats eat during the winter. Aren’t bats supposed to be hibernating right now, particularly when the outside temperature is a toasty 23 degrees?

Anyway, I got between the bat and the cat, flopped the clear plastic container over the winged one and scooped a lid underneath before showing the furry houseguest to my husband, Bill.

Bill’s first question was, “How did it get in?”

Maybe in a box of cold-storage apples recently brought in? Hiding in the Christmas tree? When the outside door was open? Not down the chimney, surely. We have fireplace inserts and those glass doors were closed.

My questions were more like, “Is the bat rabid?” recalling all those rabies stories people that first greeted us when we moved to Virginia.

After taking several close-up pictures of the bat – through the container, of course – I closed the door on the cats and took the bat outside to release him, figuring he would fly away as soon as he got his bearings.

Meanwhile, he treated me to a view of his open pink mouth and more click-clicks before scuttling off the glass-top table and finally, over the edge of the deck before disappearing underneath.

He probably would have rather been inside our 72-degree house instead of the 20-plus-degree outside and lightly blowing snow, but I wasn’t asking.

And no, we still don’t know how the bat got in.

Gratefully, I’d say.

NOTE – Rick Reynolds, a Virginia small mammal expert from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, called from Staunton, Va., and from my other photos later identified the bat – by a white spot on its elbow – as a “silver haired bat, a so-called “tree bat,” instead of a “little brown bat.”  Also, see Chris Hobson’s similar response, and what Will Orndorff had to say, under Responses.