A woman was sitting on a hay bale, quietly watching her horse get groomed, when something small suddenly wriggled out from beneath her. The tiny animal was so coated in hay and grime that it was hard to tell what it even was.
“She thought he was a frog at first,” Sam Sawyers, owner of SamBee’s Bat Care, told The Dodo.
But the mystery creature wasn’t a frog at all — it was a bat who had gotten himself into serious trouble. Covered in a sticky substance, he’d picked up debris everywhere he went, leaving his wings glued together and one ear stuck to the side of his head.
Fortunately, the woman knew exactly who could help. She had recently assisted another bat, Chewie, who was now being cared for by SamBee’s Bat Care. Determined to give this bat the same chance, she drove 30 miles to bring him in. The rescuers named him Mikey.
“Bless her, she drove 30 miles to bring him to us and rings regularly to see how they're both doing,” Sawyers said.
When Mikey arrived, he was dehydrated, underweight and clearly stressed. After giving him time to settle, his rescuers prepared him for the one thing he desperately needed — a bath.
Surprisingly, Mikey didn’t mind it at all.
“He was very patient and did a lot of relieved wing flapping once they were unstuck,” Sawyers said.
Once clean, Mikey finally looked like himself again. Free of the gunk and debris, he was placed in an incubator for 24 hours to dry completely and regain his strength. Since then, he’s been thriving.
“He needs to gain a gram of weight, then he'll go to flight school with Chewie to check they can fly strongly,” Sawyers said. “After that, they'll be taken home and released together.”
Thanks to a keen-eyed horse owner and dedicated bat rescuers, Mikey’s frightening ordeal is turning into a hopeful ending — one wing flap at a time.
If you find a bat in the UK, you can contact the Bat Conservation Trust for guidance on what to do next.
