Returning a Rescued Bat Back to the Wild


Occurred on August 12, 2019 / Son Baulo, Majorca, Spain

Info from Licensor: "We'd rescued a bat who was dehydrated, as the weather here is super hot at the moment. He was found floating in a swimming pool, exhausted as he couldn't get out. We took the bat to our apartment and put him in a box with a towel over the front of it. We left for work that night leaving the bat for about three hours. When we were at work we'd realized that we had left all of our doors open in the apartment. We didn't worry because the box with the bat in was in the living room with the towel over it. When we came home from work it was dark, we looked in the box and realized the bat had gone. We thought he had flown out of the apartment being next to the patio door. I'd checked the bedrooms and bathroom just in case he hadn't flown outside. I closed all the windows and doors ready to go to bed. The night my fiancé had quite a few drinks so was taking his time getting to bed. He decided to lay on the couch for a bit, scrolling on Facebook. I was in the bedroom and I'd heard a scream, something you'd hear from a little girl. I ran into the living room and saw my partner running around rubbing his head. He said whilst he was on the couch the bat swooped down and skimmed his head. He was hysterical at this stage, as you can imagine I was laughing like crazy. I've got quite a few friends on my facebook who are wildlife officers and so I decided to go live on Facebook. I was asking people who had joined my live feed, what should we do? I was getting all kinds of answers. Dave at this point was getting a chair to stand on so he could reach up and grab the bat who was then on the curtain pole. He went to stand on the chair and it wasn't safe so he went flying over it - falling almost onto the balcony. I was hysterical at this point. A friend suggested to remove the curtain pole and put it on the balcony, which worked a treat. We let the bat cling to a towel that was hanging on the balcony. As we were doing this, other bats were circling overhead so we shut the balcony doors as quick as possible."