Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I hope it was all batty! You may remember that I was told that my Baturday News post last week was too modest. I was trying something new. As you know, I am already fabulously famous. After all, I have been in many videos. I have yet to win any awards, though. So, this time, I was thinking of trying a different approach. I was thinking that, perhaps, if I waited a week to talk about Bat Squad and my starring role (there are a few stars), that maybe, perhaps, I would get an Oscar or an Emmy this time around. Maybe the people handing out awards think I was too demanding last time. I’m sure it will work. I’m absolutely certain that I’ll be nationally recognized this time around! No pressure people!!! Anyway, I am excited to be a part of Bat Squad. It is an amazing group of kids from around the country and I feel honored to be chosen to be a part of it. You can read all about the other kids and what they are doing to help bats here. They have done some really amazing work! I am a little jealous of Madison. She has gotten to hold bats! I think that would be amazing. It’s exciting to know that there are so many other kids out there who love bats. And it’s nice to know there are kids all around […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I had a great week because it started with Bat Fest Annandale. I had a lot of fun! It was great to see some of you all there. Some of the people there said they were going to start reading my blog, so welcome to all my new readers. I hope everyone who went to Bat Fest had a good time. Mrs. Sturges taught everyone about our local bats and white-nose syndrome. Then we all got to see some of Save Lucy’s resident bats. First, Poppy the red bat made an appearance. She didn’t stay out very long because she was a little fussy. She did get some juicy mealworms, so I think she was happy. Then we got to see Lacy the Hoary bat. She ate some juicy mealworms too. We also went outside to look for bats. We used bat detectors to listen for them. I had the privilege of getting to hold one of the detectors. We saw a couple of red bats flying around catching bugs. We also might have seen a tri-colored bat and a big brown flying around. It was exciting to see all of the bats, but I thought it was especially exciting to see the tri-colored one. Tri-colored bats are suffering horribly from WNS, so it was nice to see one flying around. I hope everyone has a nice week. [Editor’s note: Rachael is being far too modest–she is […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I survived the first week of school!!! I am in high school now. It has been a rough week. Gone are the leisurely days of sleeping past noon. I have to get up at 6:00 in the morning!!! And now I have homework!!! It’s inhumane!!! At least I got to see my friends. Ok, now for the serious stuff. I am sure you have all heard about the oil pipeline they are trying to build in North Dakota. The pipeline is being built just outside of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The Native Americans are fighting to stop the construction of the pipeline. They say that the construction will disturb their ancient sacred sites. They also say that the construction of the pipeline violates treaties between the US government and the Sioux. While I have some definite opinions about this, I’m not sure this is the place to discuss it. Instead, I will focus on the environmental disaster that will eventually take place if the pipeline is allowed to be constructed in this location. In addition to being built through sacred land, the pipeline will go under the Missouri River. The river is the main source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux and many other people living in the area. It is also a source of drinking water for wildlife. If this pipeline cracks, the river will be contaminated with oil. This means that everyone […]
Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a soon-to-be high school student and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for three years Hi everyone! I hope you had a good week. I enjoyed my last week of summer vacation by sleeping late and shopping. I will be starting high school next week. While I’m excited about being in high school, I am going to miss sleeping until noon (sometimes even later!). I was talking to a family friend a little while ago and he was telling me about his trip to Bracken Cave in Texas. He and another friend are photographers for the Nature Conservancy. They went to Bracken Cave last year to take pictures and video of the bats for a Nature Conservancy article. He took the video and our other friend took the photographs. I wish I could have been there! It must have been amazing! He told me all about sitting outside the cave waiting for the bats to come out for the night. He said that when the bats all start flying out of the cave, there are so many of them that you can feel the wind caused by their wings. He watched for hours while between 15 and 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats flew out of the cave. The Nature Conservancy article tells about how a development company wanted to build a neighborhood close to the cave, so the Nature Conservancy and Bat Conservation International worked to save the cave. Luckily they were successful, so the bats are now safe. If you want to read the article, you can read it here. Another article is […]