A lady in Hazlerigg, Newcastle, called to say she had found a bat on her porch and it had an injured arm. She had tried to release it the previous night but he was not willing or able to fly. By the time the bat was picked up later that day, she had put him in a washing up container lined with kitchen roll and he had drank the water and eaten nearly its own body weight in Caesar dog food!! She had taken quite a shine to him, even though he squeaked and chipped in fury at being held captive. He was an adult common pipistrelle.She called the Bat Advice Line and a licenced bat worker trained in caring for injured bats was sent to her house. She describes the case:
Once checked it was clear that something was very wrong with his left elbow, it was hugely inflamed and bruising ran all the way up his forearm. Otherwise he was absolutely fine…He was found only a few meters from the A1, the injuries were consistent with having been hit by a vehicle. The vet had a great deal of trouble carrying out an X-ray as the irate bat scuttled in circles under the machine and would not sit still! Finally an X ray was taken with him shoved into a syringe packet to restrict him for a minute. The results were not very good as the bat sat on his elbows.
How do you fix a potentially broken elbow? Especially on a bat that takes extreme exception to everything other than dinner (live mealworms)?! On the plus side, he had a never ending appetite and it might not be broken, just sprained… I decided as near complete rest as I could make him take was the best thing, and since he would not sit still in a large space, I gave him a small one. He was kept confined until the swelling went down, but then needed to lose a bit of weight as he had grown in size a bit (=creme egg with wings) and needed a spot of excercise.. flight training was required.. if he could still fly! He answered that question by zooming off (and crash landing after a couple of meters - onto fabric flight cage walls, thankfully...but he was clearly up for it.
At the end of weeks 4 he was zooming about quite nicely and could take off and land at will, after 2 nights of very good flying (to the point where he was reluctant to land at all) I arranged with the finders to take him back that weekend! The couple who found the bat were delighted to see him again. He still had a bit of a lump over his elbow, but he was so good in the air I was certain he’d be fine. Normally bats take a while to warm before flying, sniff the air a bit then go for it. Not he, the heater had been on in the car and he had warmed there, he shot out of my gloved hand like a small furry bullet. He had the decency to do a few loop-the-loops and munch some midges (as picked up on my bat detector) and spent about 15 minutes shooting up and down the street before flying off down a beech hedge.
Another bat rehabilitation success!
