Thursday 26 July 2012

Rescuing an injured Bat


Rescuing an injured Bat
This morning Neeta and I helped in rescuing an injured bat.
It was during the morning walk at Secunderabad Club, when I noticed something struggling to crawl around a tree bark. Going closer I realised it was a bat which had got stuck in the strings used for kite flying. In an effort to untangle itself, the bat had got stuck further in the web made out of the string. It had woven itself around the bark of the tree. I tried breaking the string with bare hands. But it would not. Then I rubbed it against the bark and it worked! The bat could now move around the bark. See the picture (luckily I had the camera in the car which I had brought along to shoot 'rain drops'). Bats always like it upside down! Even when injured!
 Now the bat was unshackled from the tree but still stuck in the maze of strings wound tightly across its wings, neck and wing tips. Closer scrutiny revealed that it had cuts/wounds on the wing tip using which it gets a hold on the tree, its neck and one ear lobe. You can see the blood on its ear lobe. 


Its eyes tried to say ‘Please help me!’ Don’t you get the same feeling? How could I abandon it in that condition?


By now Neeta had also joined me after her Yoga session. To our bad luck, she hadn’t brought her bag which generally has a pair of scissors. We needed it to cut all the strings around the bat so that it could be free. The nearest first aid box at the Badminton court had no scissors. However, one of the ball boys fetched a pair of scissors. I used it to trim the strings which had formed a cage for the bat. While doing so, the bat lost its grip on the bark and fell to the ground. It then started to crawl across the road, still tangled in its web of strings.

Neeta had a brilliant idea. Why not cover its eyes with a hand towel? Perhaps then we would be able to hold its body and cut all the strings free. For a moment it worked. But the next moment, the bat set itself free of the towel mask and caught Neeta’s sandals. She shrieked and set herself free. By now some more onlookers and security guards had arrived.
One of the guards D Gogoi then offered to help. He caught the bat by its neck and another guard then took the scissors to quickly cut off the maze. We could hear its shrill shrieks which we otherwise hear at night. The bat was now free but badly injured. So much so that it could not fly. 



We then took it to a nearby tree and made it climb the bark—safe beyond the reach of dogs and cats! Hopefully, it would recover and regain strength to fly again. May be its mate would look for it in the night!


We all heaved a sigh of relief having saved a fellow creature on our lovely planet!
But the next time you lose your kite, please recover the string. Before it hurts and kills another bat!
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27 comments:

  1. Insaano ke dil main in sab ke prati pyar jagna bahut hi achhi baat hain. Aise bhavnayein bani rahe yehi dua hain. anand

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  2. Wonderful pictures and commentary.

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  3. hi friends
    There r some incidence in life which u can never forget nd whenever the meomry of that,,, gave ur heart nd brain start smiling
    It was a very pleasent earlymorning of april nd i gone for morningwalk in a park near to my house as daily . sudenly i heard lot of crows making horrible noise on a tree nd 1 run from there for a short while .when they little calm i start my walking i take a round nd when i came again under that tree somthing very soft touch to my feet as i saw down i saw a veryyyyyyyyyyy qt bird lying there wonded I never touch any bird in my life bt i cant leave him gather my courage nd pick him up in my arms nd litterly run to my house. Put him in room try to give him water bt no use he is taking only breats till nw i dont know which bird is this ,, i call to my vet doctor nd told him everything nd ask what to do nd i clean his minor wound nd then tried to feed him bt the whole dy nd night he didnteat anything. nd then i send some pics of him to doctor that i can know who is it nd can came to know is eating habits.then doctor search on net nd told me that it is a kingfisher speices rare in northen india .tillthe second dy he starts moving a little allthe day night i was saying infront of him"tumhe aasmano me bahut dooooor uddke jana h " nd i keep on repeating nw slowly he try to fly bt cantnw because he is moving here nd there i buy a canary nd put him in so my dog or outside cant give any harm .. nd u know bt he starts eat when i eat he come to me whatever i eat he eats only that
    nw 8 dys pass like this nd he bcm so active nw when its time of mt meal he shouts like anything nd then eat with me . on 10th dy he had breakfast with me ,Window of the cage ws close i saw it 1 minute back as i enter in room from wash room i saw him on door nd palak jhapkte he go out nd mere dekhte he dekhte he starts flying nd never come again . but he is allways allways with me .all his meomories ll b in my heart .,,,, i had never seen a beautyful bird like him in my life thanx if u had some inner or outer experiences i m oolized to ppost it in my group Internal experience,,,,

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  4. thanx
    Harsh for sharing it all

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  5. Good job sir..and really nice pictures..!!!

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  6. Replies
    1. Sir thats wonderful.you have a genial spirit

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  7. Sir, it was really a heart touching journey of the story...I hope and wish everyone of us should do our bit to help these wonderful creations of nature!

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  8. Very Touching..the images in itself speak a thousand words.
    Kudos Sir!!! you did an impeccable act..

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  9. reetika ajmani29 July 2012 at 11:01

    Amazing!!

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  10. Its really nice sir that you made such a great effort to rescue the bat..only looking at d pics, I wonder how difficult or how courageous job it would be, but you have actually done it..amazing and tremendous!!

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  11. Trust you're doing good Sir. You keep making everyone around 'proud of you'. :)

    Btw the blog title sounds really nice. :) Keep Writing Sir!!

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    1. Thanks Gargi. But can't match your writing skills! Take care.

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  12. sir! as always - You have done it the Harsh bhargav way!

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