by Brenda Malinics, for the Shuttle

I love bats, and I have been working/rehabilitating them for years, so finding a bat in my attic while retrieving holiday decorations would be a terrific surprise for me — but not so for most people. 

December and January are two months in which many people find bats in the house. I’ve heard of one woman who found a bat in the winter coat she was getting out of the attic, and of a family who had a bat fly out from under the skirt of the angel tree topper. 

One’s first instinct after safely capturing a bat would be to let it outside. Don’t do it! In winter, it would be dooming the bat to death by freezing or starvation since there are no bugs for the bat to eat, and the warm summer temperatures that bats enjoy have long passed. 

So what’s up with the rogue bats that show up in so many homes this time of year? Halloween hangers-on? Nope, more like stupid teenagers who didn’t listen to their elders when the “scout” bat sent messages throughout the neighborhood that it was time to leave their summer residences and gather at “hibernacula” for six months of hibernation. 

In most cases, it is just one or two youngsters who decide to stay behind in the attics they’ve known all summer. They find themselves “home alone” with the maternity colony departed, and as the weather gets colder, and their metabolism naturally slows down, they nestle into insulation, folds of rugs or stored clothing, boxes . . . sometimes of holiday decorations. 

But attics are too dry and too busy for hibernating. (Bats that hibernate in Pennsylvania take up winter residence in caves or old mine holes.) A hibernating bat in a true state of torpor could use up its entire store of fat reserves if disturbed by people coming up to the attic, and be too weak to fly out and hunt for bugs when spring arrives.

Bats that are found in winter must be overwintered in a high-humidity rehab environment. So if you find a bat in your home in the winter, contact the Schuylkill Wildlife Rehab Center (215-482-8217; animals are accepted 365 days a year). The bat will be guaranteed a safe place to hang out until its friends and family return in the spring. 

BatWorld.org has correct methods to safely capture a bat, fascinating facts on bat hibernation and other outstanding information about these gentle and misunderstood creatures.

Happy holidays! Happy batting!