August 19-25, 2004

mixpicks

Bump In the Night

by Tami Fertig

Poor misunderstood bats. They do us a world of favors and we still dislike them. Never mind that while we sleep, they eat our pesky insects and pollinate our plants. We just won't give them the time of day (or, as the case may be, night). Did you know their feces clean laundry? And while we might use the phrase "blind as a bat," most of them actually see quite well in the dark, better than you or I. Delaware Museum of Natural History Executive Director Geoff Halfpenny knows it. He studied bats for over 25 years in Staffordshire, England, and will guide a bat walk this Wednesday evening along the Brandywine River, following Hagley Museum's final Bike and Hike event of the summer. In a brief talk on the basics of bats, Halfpenny, who used to make roughly 300 bat house calls a year, will clear up any ill feelings you've been breeding toward his favorite mammal. He'll then use an electronic bat detector to pick up ultrasonic sounds — ones normally beyond the range of human hearing — that bats make to help navigate and look for food in the seemingly silent night sky. "Turn on the bat detector," says Halfpenny, "and you discover there's an absolute racket up there." Some eight to 10 species regularly haunt the vicinity, so you'll hopefully hear lots of bat action. Who knows, after a few calls, you might even start to like the funny-looking little fellows.

Guided Bat Walk, Wed., Aug. 25, 8 p.m., $2, Hagley Museum and Library, 298 Buck Rd., Wilmington, Del., 302-658-2400.