Not Quite Night
Corona Arch, Moab, Utah
When the bats came out, it wasn’t exactly nighttime.
The birds were still singing. Had my ears been able to perceive the bat’s echolocating noises, the overlap of the two would have been rowdy.
But instead, the primary sense I used was my eyes because it was still light enough. I had mistaken the bats for birds at first, wondering why they were moving so erratically. After a few minutes it was evident the pattern of movement wasn’t feathered wing flight, even to my untrained eyes.
I tilted my head back and rested it on the thin fabric of the camp chair. All I had to do was watch. Maybe scootch to the left if the smoke shifted in my direction. After a minute, the sky’s color deepening through the scraggly cottonwood branches, another bat appeared. Now two of them danced low over our heads.
“With each change in direction or newly chosen flight path, they were reacting to shifts in our shared environment that I couldn’t see, hear, or understand.”
I knew why they were close to the ground and it had nothing to do with us. We sat only one road’s width away from a river. It’s sodden banks harbored the kind of tender plants and occasionally muddy environments that attract bugs, so the bats were coming down towards the most likely source of food. We were merely incidental to their dinner plans, perhaps only contributing campfire smoke that might attract some of those bugs.
For a fistful of minutes, the bats performed their choppy waltz with each other and their prey. With each change in direction or newly chosen flight path, they reacted to shifts in our shared environment that I couldn’t see, hear, or understand.
“They gave me the gift of going about their business. Of being there to be observed.”
The next ten minutes were memorable in their stillness, with only a few flying creatures making their way through the dusk. They shared this transition to night along with the first stars.
My two bright eyes pointed up for longer than they would usually be. I gave those bats the gift of observation and attention. They gave me the gift of going about their business. Of being there to be observed. Of simply hunting for a dusky meal, as they usually do.
Inspired by events in Moab, Utah
on land belonging to the Ute (Noochew), Navajo (Dineh), Paiute (Nuwuvi), and Hopi (Hisatsinom) - source.