Bats and a cat

September 9, 2013 • 2:22 pm

by Matthew Cobb

Two bits of fotografic frivolity. First, spotted by my daughter Lauren on Tumblr – upside down bats throwing neat dance moves:

Then, from Twitter, this picture of a cat that allegedly sat on a guy’s phone and took a selfie (it has already been retweeted >14,000 times since it was posted three months ago):

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Any other cats out there been taking photos of themselves?

25 thoughts on “Bats and a cat”

  1. Never did understand why people don’t like bats. I’m planning on including a bat house in the garden. I’ve seen them in the neighborhood, so I have good reason to hope it’d get occupied.

    I think Baihu might have tripped the shutter a couple times when I was shooting with the camera remotely tethered to the laptop (by stepping on the space bar), but, for obvious reasons, he wasn’t himself in the shot….

    b&

    1. As soon as I planted native flowers, shrubs, and trees in my yard, I noticed an immediate increase in bat visitors. The native plants attracted the insects and the insects attracted the bats!

      I need to add a bat house to my project list.

      1. Good to know, because the back (where the bat house will go) is going to be overwhelmingly full of natives, with plenty of blooming and fruiting species.

        b&

      2. I was once visiting Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in the late 60s, and at dusk 1000s upon 1000s of bats would circle the hotel, mouths open for bugs. They’d circle for maybe an hour and then repair back to the trees to hang upside down until the next day. If you didn’t know what they were you would think they were some kind of fruit hanging from the tall trees (can’t remember the type).

    2. I put up a bat house but I think they like them good & high so no one has gone in it. Mind you, there are some nice tall pines nearby.

    3. I love bats!

      One year I counted 65 coming out of our chimney.

      Unfortunately, we did have to repair the chimney–now no bats…

      1. Hmm…hadn’t thought about that. Not sure how exciting it’d be…the bats would mostly be sleeping in it when it’s light, and I don’t think they’d appreciate a night-light….

        b&

  2. I don’t know why people insist on pulling rabbits out of their hats, when WEIT pulls bats and cats.

    [Next up, rats. Or maybe, not.]

  3. Those bats look pretty cool. I love the shadows being cast. Maybe they are vampires vamping. 🙂

    The cat selfie is pretty awesome. That cat needs his/her own Twitter account!

    1. It looks more like some bat derivative of tango to me.

      “- Is the landing strip clear?”

      “- Roger, let’s tango!”

    1. That’s extraordinary. The cat seems remarkably composed about it (and its owner remarkably patient). But – why? What’s going on?

      1. Poor cat has a really, really bad case of kibble poisoning.

        No, I’m not joking. Cats aren’t able to properly metabolize kibble, any more than humans are able to properly metabolize a Big Mac with fries and a Coke. Sure, you can eat impressive amounts before the damage starts to set in or become serious, and, yes, some individuals are more susceptible than others. But, in both species, the end result, especially when taken to extremes, is exactly the same.

        b&

  5. Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) `I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, `Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, `Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

  6. One of our cats stepped on the TV remote in the middle of the night, turned on the telly and cranked up the volume to full blast. At first we thought that our neighbour had his TV on loud but on investigation it turned out to be ours.

    1. I know the feeling! Noticed my cat behaving strangely when I woke up one morning. Wondered what kind of trouble he got into this time, got up and went into the living room and very LOUD noise. Took some time to figure out it was the radio. It wasn’t on a station so…. I figured I’d not show my face around the apt complex for some time.

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