As a bit of a departure from the usual posts I thought I’d recount a scary encounter I had last night.

First you have to get a mental picture of my “office”. The room is about 15 foot long by about 12 foot at the very widest; but most of the room is a lot narrower than that. My desk and computer are up the wide end of the room under the window, that’s my “office”; whilst the dish washer and machine machine are up the narrow end – that’s the “utility room”.

So last night I’m sitting at my desk writing my journal about 11pm. It’s well dark outside and I’m aware that there’s a number of moths flying against the window attracted by the lights. Sometimes the moths manage to get in as I’ve the window is locked slightly open to allow some ventilation.

So I’m typing away when a shadow falls across my screen, “Oh!”, I think, “There’s a moth after getting in”.

Then the shadow passes across the screen again, “Hang on! That’s a very big moth”. I swivel round in my chair and there’s this great, black bat flying straight at me!

I don’t have to tell you that I didn’t stop to measure its wing span!

Now it could have been a Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) or a House Martin (Delichon urbica) as we’ve both nesting around the house at the moment and it looked a similar size. Except for the fact that I didn’t see any white or other colouration on it this thing then did a disappearing act and vanished which is a thing I think a bat would do whereas a bird would probably keep flying about. There’s a huge number of crooks and crannies a bat could hide in behind book cases and appliances. Maybe it even went out the way it came in.

Before you ask; no, I didn’t imagine it. Mrs H. saw it make a pass of the kitchen the instant before I saw it.

So somewhere in here with me now there probably lurks a bat. I’ll have to wait and see if it comes out again tonight.