06/02/2026
I’m going to show you some of the photos we get from finders and why we always ask for “more photos”. Why we rarely say “stick it on a tree” or it “looks like it’s an adult, it will be fine” or why we will tell you to flip over a dead bat. (Please keep reading).
It’s baby season. It’s a hard time to be a mama bat. Birds are crazy territorial right now and will fling a mother bat from a tree for no reason other than perceived threat. Some birds want the bats for their babies. Some squirrels and snakes also see a quick meal.
All of our bats are MICRO bats- none are larger than the palm of an adult hand when wings are folded and with wings out, they are the size of two average adult hands maximum. So. Putting a small bat that is a baby or juvenile on a tree is a death sentence. Putting an injured adult bat on a tree is a death sentence marked with heat, starvation and a bullseye for predators.
Most people outside of bat rehabbers and bat biologists can’t tell you from a photo which bats are adults and which are babies, they also can’t tell you who is injured and who isn’t, but most of the time we can. We look at bats every day.
Right now, if we ask you to get closer photos, please do. If we ask you to flip the dead bat to check for baby bats, please do. This time of year is hard for mama bats and some go down fighting with their babies until the end, and you won’t notice if you don’t look.
To summarize, don’t stick bats on trees without talking to us, please flip over dead bats at this time of year to check for babies (use a small stick or similar not bare hands).
Photos: grounded adult bat, grounded adult Mexican Free-tailed bat, dead adult bat with babies attached (because somebody flipped her and looked), and final picture is a baby Seminole bat who’s finders did call us and take her down, and she became a precious adult we called Woobit as named by her finders.
