Bats and balls

I didn't need Bat Woman to tell me there were bats nesting in the roof. One evening last summer I counted 150 of them setting out through the crack between the roof and the top of the wall for a night of midge annihilation. You can hear their version of African clicking language and squeaking remonstrations of "me first" as they jostle to emerge at dusk. The amount and distribution of the guano suggested to our knowledgeable bat woman that there were whiskered bats (Myotis mystacinus), common pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pipistrellus), brown long eared bats (Plecotus auritus), natterer’s bats (M.nattereri ) and Daubenton’s bats colonising for the summer in the rafters. She collected the bat shit in little jewellery boxes. I think she took the earrings out first. As the bats leave for their night of hunting they swoop right or left, coming low, just inches over your head, before circling towards the hedgerows that provide enough mini-meat to sustain them. One evening our neighbour's friend brought an ultrasonic bat detector box and we stood in the dark in the road between the two farms (little traffic comes past once tractor hours are over) whilst she interpreted the sounds, identifying the types of bat flying overhead. But yesterday I was given an out of print bat book and suddenly I had an insight into what all that battery of clicking is about. After some great pictures of the various types of bat, there at the back is a parade of privates, a genus of genitals, a display of dicks. There for all to gawp at are shots of bat penises; slightly furry, dressed to the right and to the left , shapely and not so shapely, well endowed and discreet. For a bat girl who likes a bit of meat on her man, the noctule bat is the boy to date and mate. Relatively speaking, he's hung like a donkey.