When I run during the week, I do it at 5:30 a.m. so I can get my hour in and still get to work at a reasonable hour. I have noticed that we have quite a few bats out at that time of day. This morning, a couple of them swooped fairly close to me. I realize that they were probably chasing bugs or something, but it really creeped me out and I had a hard time enjoying the rest of my run.
Would a bat ever land on or attack a human that is moving pretty rapidly? Or have I seen too many bad movies?Generally they have no interest in attacking or even touching you. They are incredibly fast and accurate flyers. The near misses you described were probably a comfortable distance for them. Occassionally however, they might have contracted rabies and behave erratically. If they are rabid, it’s possible that they would bite you. I don’t think they would be exhibiting the normal behavior which you described though. A bat that " is active by day, is found in a place where bats are not usually seen (for example in rooms in your home or on the lawn), or is unable to fly, is far more likely than others to be rabid" according to the CDC.
Keep in mind that squirrels can contact rabies too, but you probably aren’t afraid of them.
Bats have gotten a bad rap. We put up a bat-house a few years ago and have noticed a huge reduction in the number of mosquitos in our yard.
The bats have so far proven to be very neighborly. They’re also sort of cute in a flying-mouse kinda way.
I’ve heard that only 1% of all bats ever get rabies.
But aren’t there something like a trillion bats in the world?
If so, then there are, what? 10 billion bats with rabies?:eek:
Mosquitos are attracted by, among other things, carbon dioxide. When you run, you probably attract them. So it could be that the bats were diving at mosquitos diving at you.
Informative CDC link - [Bats and Rabies](http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/bats_&_rabies/bats&.htm#Why should I learn about bats and rabies).
Bats are wonderful creatures and quite cute, especially vampire bats with their little piggy faces.
I don’t consider my evening trip around the back of the barn with our dogs complete unless I see a few bats swooping around in the twilight. Help yourselves to our bugs, little bats! We’ve got plenty.
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder where you’re at!
Up above the world so high,
Like a tea-tray in the sky . . .
I don’t mind bats in general, though their darting around can be a bit creepy. It partly because the look like birds, but don’t fly like them; the flight paths are strange and scary.
No, you should never be afraid of any animal, especially the little ones that you could squish like a bug. Bats can fly just as or even more nimbly than sparrows, and they won’t attack you - you’re more likely to get dive-bombed by a chickadee with a nest nearby, and how many times has that happened?
I went out on a bat watch with a local bat society once, and was amazed at how many there were and how fast and controled they flew. The guys had a little bat sonar detector gizmo, and you could here their clicky sounds speed up, and then you’d faintly see one zip by. Very neat.
Rabies? Well yeah, rarely, but you can find that in all sorts of wildlife that will go after you like dogs, raccoons, and so on. Consider them mice with wings, and you’ll be fine. Better yet if you’re jittery around bats go check out a bat society meeting if there is a club near you - it will prove quite interesting.
How many bats are there in the world?
This web site says only 1/2 of 1% of all bats have rabies. But if there are a trillion bats in the world, like Hayduke claims, then 1/2%, while a small percentage, is still a large number of rabid bats.
5 billion of anything is a lot!
http://www.batworld.org/myths_facts/myths_facts.html
How on earth does your ordinary, brown, flit-around-in -the-twilight bat get rabies? As I understand it, rabies is exclusive a neurological disease of mammals and is transmitted by saliva or blood containing the virus/bacteria getting into the blood stream of the victim. I can’t imagine a bat deliberately biting a skunk of fox (the common carrier of rabies around here), much less a skunk or fox biting a bat and then letting it go. Blood sucking bats which are very stealthy, maybe. But the common North American brown bat–not likely.
[highjack]
Honey: I’d like to have bats around my house, as I’ve had them in a previous home. Does a bat house need to be baited in any way? Or do they just need a place to crash at, uh, day?
[/highjack]
We have quite a few bats living in the upstairs loft of our garage, and since we spend a lot of time outdoors at sunset and after dark, I see them frequently and even have had them swoop down at me. True, I do get a little leery when they come close (the whole bat-stuck-in-long hair thing), but they have never hit me.
On the other hand, I heard recently that having bats around may be overrated as mosquito control. I know for a fact that despite our large bat population we still get chowed royally by mosquitoes. Maybe they can’t keep up, or maybe they’re too busy getting the larger insects?
It actually happened to me about a week ago. Not a chickadee, but a goldfinch. I walked a little too close to its’ nest (in a dryer vent) and out it came. It dove, I rolled, I looked up, it flapped at me a few time in mid-air as if to say “And don’t let it happen again!” and flitted back to its’ nest. I came back a few days later and saw that the cleaners had put wiring over the dryer vent. I actually felt a little sorry for the little guy. Then again I just its’ better than having the finch eggs boiled where they sat…
Another quick story: I decided to go for a twilight walk through a wooded area near my house. Everything was fine until the sun went down. The woods were filled with bats. I don’t know where they were all hiding in the daylight (I’ve walked the woods a couple times in broad daylight and never seen one.) but there they were. I’ll give the little rodents credit, they never came closer than a foot and a half from me in any direction. I love bats, but that experience was a bit intense for me.
I love to watch my little bat friends fly around outside, but when some were trapped in my workspace, I got worried. Bat droppings can carry diseases, especially when dry and mixed with mold. I’m thinking this would be more of a problem in, say a cave, than an office. But I didn’t want to take any chances.
I find the whole thing very upsetting. In my entire life, I’ve seen a total of 4 bats in the wild.
1-hibernating in cave. If the teacher hadn’t pointed it out to us, I would’ve mistaken it for fungus. Even on close examination (not too close, we didn’t want to wake it) I couldn’t see a head, or wings, just a ball of fur.
2-roadkill.
3&4- flew out of a chimney on a friend’s rooftop. I didn’t realise what they were until they were gone.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Doper who can walk down a street at night and not see bats. 
We don’t get them here, either. Except for that annoying rich guy with the mask and the cool car, of course.
I think that you should not be afraid of flying bats.
I also think that you should not be afraid of baseball bats.
However, flying baseball bats are another story entirely. ph33r them.
Pedanticism break - they aren’t rodents - order Chiroptera.
Usually from other bats. Many species live in communal groups, and an infected individual will get plenty of opportunity to infect others. That begs the question of how the FIRST bat got the disease, but that question could be asked of any infectious disease.
The association of rabies with bats is way, way overdone, though they are, along with skunks, raccoons and foxes, recognized reservoir species for the disease.
I caught a bat once with a pool net. I put him in a mason jar so I could study him (I used leather gloves to handle him in case he was rabid, which proved unnecessary since he was very docile and did not attempt to bite). He was furry and reddish-brown and he had a face like a bulldog. He had a strange habit of bobbing his head up and down rapidly which made him seem old and feeble. My mom thought he was cute. I wish I’d owned a better camera back then because I tried to take some pictures but they didn’t come out.
We had roast bat for dinner that night, which was a bit dry for my taste – just kidding! I let him go as soon as I was done looking at him, and he flew off into the sunset to join his companions.