Bats again

Him Outdoors is in the process of rubbing down and repainting the french doors that we have in the living room. They are heavy and he needs assistance to get them off their hinges to get them outside. Schoolroom leverage with a spade has worked.

I have been undercoating them as they are rubbed down and rehung. Yesterday we got in a bit of a muddle with dog/wet paint so today, as I was painting while they were out walking, I pondered how to resolve this.

OK. We have shutters. Half close the shutters on one side and block off the whole thing on the other side with a convenient bit of old hay manger that doubles as a grandchild fireguard.

All going well until I realised that there was a bat spending the day behind the shutter. Oops keep pondering.

Nope, it's no good, that's a really good way and they must get disturbed in the wild sometimes. They are grown up bats (who knows) they must be able to cope with this.

Boldly open the shutters and bat blinks, obviously thinks 'what the....' and then flies off. All ok.

Except as I shut the shutters more there is another bat gasping on the ground. You can see its tiny heart beating madly (or maybe normally for a bat, who knows). Other bat is still flying around but this one is just lying there...............

Carefully scooped up to put on the top of the door out of the reach of the cat, it suddenly recovers and flies off to join the other one.

Phew.