Bats (A Favorite Place and Time)

Dark, dark, midnight-blackened sky, twinkling with thousands of stars.  As we pass streetlamps, we can see the bats, diving and zipping and streaking in pursuit of mosquitos.  My little son and I are walking across the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution on a warm summer night, en route to  a late night "bat watch" hosted by the resident bat naturalists. 

Chautauqua, with its creaky and drafty old century homes, their attics easily accessible to winged guests, had been a summer haven for the little brown bat as well as for symphony and lecture-goers.  But as the houses were remodeled into elegant condos and the walls sealed with modern techniques, the bats had begun to depart en masse.  University students from Canada were recruited to study the bats and advise residents on how to make their homes more bat-friendly.  Each week they offered an afternoon "bat chat," well attended by youngsters and their parents, and on occasional evenings they would show us bat roosts while they worked at counting bats. 

My son, who at six loves everything about nature and science, chatters the whole mile to the bat-banding place and the whole mile back, well aware that the bats are chattering, too, but with sounds beyond his capacity to hear.  Music drifts across the grounds from the central plaza, where orchestra students play in impromptu post-concert ensembles, and people murmur on porches, where they have gathered to talk late into the night while their children sleep.  And the bats dip under the lights and soar across the lake, tiny members of a summer community.