My cat caught a bat

My cat caught a bat while sitting on the windowsill. We had to grab it from her claws and release. We live on the 9th floor. Maybe the flying horror just missed and got in by itself.
Any cases like this?

I had a cat who brought a live bat in through the cat door. She wasn't bit, and the bat flew around the house for hours before I could coax it to go back outdoors. I brought the kitty to the vet to be sure she hadn't been hurt but there were no wounds. The same cat also brought in a baby snapping turtle and a snake.

It sounds like your cat is quite the hunter, Kfander ! Catching even a baby snapping turtle must have been quite a feat for the cat. Snapping turtles have about the worst personality I have ever seen a turtle have. They will literally chase you down just to snap you. When they are after you, they raise straight up on their legs rather than just crawling along like most turtles do, and hiss at you as they attack.
Not only that, they have all of those spikes along their back, and look like something that belongs in Jurassic Park .
If I remember right, bats are a type of rodent, so it makes sense to me that a cat would catch, and maybe eat , a bat if one flew close enough for the cat to catch it. Bats do not seem to be inclined to bite, at least from what I have seen.
My friend called me when I was a teenager, and she was babysitting , and somehow a bat had gotten into the house and was flying around. I went over and we trapped the bat, and I took it back home before I let it go again. It squeaked at me, but never tried to bite at all.

(10-28-2014, 10:58 PM)Happyflowerlady Wrote: It sounds like your cat is quite the hunter, Kfander ! Catching even a baby snapping turtle must have been quite a feat for the cat. Snapping turtles have about the worst personality I have ever seen a turtle have. They will literally chase you down just to snap you. When they are after you, they raise straight up on their legs rather than just crawling along like most turtles do, and hiss at you as they attack.

Uh huh. I had to rescue her daughter a couple of days later because she was circling what was probably the mother snapping turtle, acting all the world like she didn't have a clue that there was any danger involved. You're right. Snapping turtles are pretty nasty.

I am sure that it was a good thing that you got to your cat before she got snapped by that snapping turtle, Kfander.
When I lived in Missouri, there was a catfish pond outback, and it also had snapping turtles in it. Since they mainly stayed under the water, it was hard to know that they were in there unless you happened to have one take the hook when you were fishing.
Then it seemed like you had a big catfish when you reeled the turtle in, and once you actually had it out of the water, then you had to figure out how to get it off of the hook, because by then, that turtle was really mad !
At about that point was when it would raise straight up on those stubby little legs, and come after you with its mouth open and hissing as it advanced.
Sometimes, we had to just cut the line, take the turtle down to the little creek, and hope it would not find its way back to my catfish pond.
I had no idea that a turtle coulld be so agressively bad tempered, until I encountered my first snapping turtle.

I had an uncle who made turtle soup out of snapping turtles, although I never tasted it, since it sounded like a bad idea. He'd pay us $5 or $10 for a snapping turtle, depending on the size. There were sandy spots along the creek where they would bury themselves sometimes. The wet sand might be indented, and sometimes you could see air bubbling through the sand where the turtle was. Since large snappers were tough to come by, we weren't usually looking of them when we found them, so we wouldn't have shovels or anything with us. So we'd dig with sticks and hands, trying to determine where the non-dangerous part of the turtle was. Those things were nasty, though; it's almost as if they didn't like the idea of being turned into soup.

The last time I was home, after having been away for a long time, I walked down by the creek, and it was hard to believe we used to swim and play there. When I was a kid, it had a sandy beach, and the area around it was kept mowed. We had a rope swing into the wide spot in the creek, and all the kids in the neighborhood (all six of us) used to play and swim there. Well, it seems that kids don't play outdoors anymore, so the banks hadn't been cleared in at least a couple of decades, and it was hard even to walk along the creek banks. The water was black, and there were snakes and spiders. That was kind of sad, really. Although there are at least as many kids in the area now as there were then, I don't know that they ever leave their own yards.

Remembering that this thread was supposed to be about cats catching bats, I am trying desperately to think of a way to end my post on topic but I'm sorry, I can't. I've already told the story of my kitty bringing a live bat in t through the cat, so door, so that won't work.

(10-27-2014, 11:35 PM)kfander Wrote: I had a cat who brought a live bat in through the cat door. She wasn't bit, and the bat flew around the house for hours before I could coax it to go back outdoors. I brought the kitty to the vet to be sure she hadn't been hurt but there were no wounds. The same cat also brought in a baby snapping turtle and a snake.

It appears that you are also the one who got us OFF-topic in the first place, so don't be giving me those sideways looks like you think that I did it, Kfander. However, I am pretty sure that I already told my only bat story, too, and it didn't even have a cat in it.

I did have a cat that used to catch gophers though, if that counts.
Grey had kittens once, and she was always going out looking for wild critters to feed her babies.
Some of the ground squirrels that she would come dragging home were almost as big as Grey was; so she was an awesome hunter.
She also brought home birds, and I think maybe even a partially grown rabbit once.
If we had had any bats around; I am sure that Grey would have caught those, too.

(12-12-2014, 08:11 AM)Happyflowerlady Wrote: It appears that you are also the one who got us OFF-topic in the first place, so don't be giving me those sideways looks like you think that I did it, Kfander. However, I am pretty sure that I already told my only bat story, too, and it didn't even have a cat in it.

I would never do such a thing.

I did worry about my poor kitty though, when she brought the bat in. After chasing the thing through the house, finally managing to persuade it to fly out a door, it was time to check the cat out carefully for any wounds that might suggest a bite. Fortunately, she was a short-haired cat with light gray and white fur.

Kfander, how big was the bat that your cat caught ?
We used to see the bats flying around street lights at night, probably catching the plethora of night-bugs that were always swarming around the street lights. They were way too far up in the air for a cat to even think about catching though.
The bat that my friend had in the house had gotten in an open door or window, if I remember right; and she and the kids she was babysitting were all terrified by that poor little bat.
I am sure that he was as scared as Norma was, especially since she was after him with the broom.

I can't exactly remember how I caught him (her?); but I managed to do it without hurting the poor little fellow, and I am sure that he was glad to be turned loose again.
I did take him home first; but my mother was not keen on the idea of me having a bat for a house pet, so he had to join the goup flying around the streetlamps at night.

(12-17-2014, 01:34 AM)Happyflowerlady Wrote: Kfander, how big was the bat that your cat caught ?

I don't know. The average-sized adult bat, I would suppose. This was a climbing cat. In her day, I would see her high up in the trees, even crossing from one tree to another. I still thought it was amazing (and frightening) that she would catch a bat.

In her older years (she lived to be 23), she would take a run at a tree, only to get a few feet up the trunk. That part was kind of sad because it was clear that she still wanted to be up in the high branches.

Well, since I have only actually seen one little bat up close enough to determine it's size, I am totally at a loss as to what would be the average size of an adult bat , Kfander.
Totally, totally at a loss. Help me out here.
The bat that I caught , excluding the wings, was about the size of a house-mouse. Maybe a little larger, but not much. How does that compare with the one you were trying to chase out of the door ?

Also,I am wondering if she caught it during the day or at night ?
Since bats sleep all day, and are usually hidden away some place while theyare sleeping; the likely time for your cat to see a bat would be at nght; but then they are up and flying around, looking for bugs to eat. (Mosquitoes, hopefully !)
Do you think she somehow caught it up in a tree and dragged it down squeaking and squirming, or did she get the poor little fellow when he was sound asleep during the day ?
Either way, I think you had a truly amazing cat ! I am most impressed.

(12-17-2014, 09:29 AM)Happyflowerlady Wrote: Well, since I have only actually seen one little bat up close enough to determine it's size, I am totally at a loss as to what would be the average size of an adult bat , Kfander.

Oh, I see. You might think of a mouse with wings far longer than the length of its body, the wingspan being maybe one and a half feet or so. They look much like mice, only their faces are kind of pushed in. She brought it in at night, and was quite proud of herself. Like most of the things she brought in, she took care not to harm it. Exactly how she came upon it, I don't know. I know she had climbed high into the trees to catch birds before, and would even leap at a bird while remaining aloft in the branches. Born feral, and brought into the house as an adult, she was an impressive cat.

Cats can be so amazing, can't they ? I have had some that were prolific hunters, but never one that has caught a bat. Obviously she was proud of herself, too; since she brought it in for you as a special gift. (which you declined to eat).
It is interesting how cats (and sometimes dogs) will bring you in the bird or mouse that they have caught.

Cats usually bring in living prey they have captured so that they can teach their kittens how to hunt for prey.
She probably sat there and watched you chasing that bat around , muttering softly to herself, "He's never gonna get it. He has to learn how to pounce way better than that."

Also, it sounds like your adult bat was much larger than the one that I caught. The wings were definitely wider than the bat's body was long; but certainly no where near a foot or more in length.
I guess the one that I had must have definitely been a baby bat.

http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-g0IAtA...G_1448.JPG

(12-18-2014, 02:27 AM)Happyflowerlady Wrote: Cats can be so amazing, can't they ? I have had some that were prolific hunters, but never one that has caught a bat. Obviously she was proud of herself, too; since she brought it in for you as a special gift. (which you declined to eat).
It is interesting how cats (and sometimes dogs) will bring you in the bird or mouse that they have caught.

Cats usually bring in living prey they have captured so that they can teach their kittens how to hunt for prey.
She probably sat there and watched you chasing that bat around , muttering softly to herself, "He's never gonna get it. He has to learn how to pounce way better than that."

I think she brought the critters in for the other cats. As a feral, she was never much welcomed by the other cats who, although she was their housemate for nearly twenty years, always treated her as an outsider. Even her daughter would team up with the others against her mom.

She brought a bird to Baby Girl, the mother of the two older sisters who I still have, and dropped it in front of her, clearly as an offering. Baby Girl walked away from it.

She brought my wife and I inanimate objects. We would get up some mornings to find leaves, clumps of dirt, crumpled cigarette packages that she probably dug out of someone's trash, pieces of wood, and all sorts of things piled up outside our bedroom door.

Yep our crazy cat caught one in our driveway. It was a young bat and its wing was damaged. We rescued it and fed it bugs every day until it was strong enough to fly away.

I got shocked when I saw that my cat caught the bat laying on the roof of my house and seeing it is very shocking because I have never seen this type of scene before.