More than 50 years ago, Patricia Winters got her first bat, and promptly fell in love with it. As an advocate for the small nocturnal flying mammals, she was known throughout the North Bay and beyond as the Bat Lady. She died of cancer at age 70 recently, but shared her enthusiasm and knowledge in an early North Bay Report from January 2006. This is a repeat of that report.

How does someone become “the Bat Lady”?  In her case, recalls Patricia Winters, it started almost half a century ago.

Bats are moderately common in North America, but far more prevalent in the tropics, where they play an essential role in propagating fruits and other crops.

This is a Mexican free-tailed bat in flight, one of the more common species in northern California. Because of their echolocation sounds, bats actually make a lot of noise as they fly at night, but those sounds are at pitches to high for human hearing.You can listen to the echo-location sounds of a Mexican free-tailed bat, transposed into the rage of human hearing, in this audio clip.

For contrast's sake, here is the sound of what Patricia Winters calls a microwave popcorn echo. This bat send out its sounds between a gap in ins front teeth, so that the echo will no reverberate inside its mouth.

The Statewide Integrated Pest Management program at UC Davis offers this online resource to guide homeowners in dealing with bats generally and  on their property.

Pallid bat with fresh-caught grasshopper.

There are places where thousands of bats live together in caves or underground, and emerge in great clouds as the day turns dark. Here's a video of such an emergence.

With the dawn of the 2010-11 fiscal year in California, the budget-driven closures of many state park facilities have ended, effective today. But how long that will last is an open question.

Western Sonoma County is blessed with a lengthy list of state park properties, especially along the coast. But that also made for a longer list of facilities that were closed, notes Michelle Luna of the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods.

The Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, a volunteer-driven support organization for the parks of western Sonoma County, played an active role in the drive to get Proposition 21 on the ballot. Luna says budget decisions in Sacramento between now and November will likely make that issue a clear choice for voters.

Carl Mears has been studying the weather for years. Now he’s trying to do something about it.

Carl Mears will be the featured speaker at a community gathering June 30 at 5:30 pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Santa Rosa.  His topic:  “What’s really going on with the Climate? A scientists’ perspective.”

For some, the phrase "climate change" has supplanted "global warming" as this issue is discussed. Mears says he understands the scientific reasoning behind that, but dislikes the political connotations.

Jack London's cottage and ranch buildings have been preserved at the state park that bears his name in Glen Ellen. But there is another part of his historic holding that is languishing in need of repair and restoration

Cracks in the dam, such as the one in the center of this photograph, are continuing to widen as the muti-layered process of getting the pre-requisites and approvals for remediation work drags on. Five years into it, Elisa Stancil, a neighbor and volunteer event coordinator at the park, says progress is slowly being made.

London erected the dam and created the rain-fed lake in 1913, using it for both recreation (as seen here) and for his farm.  Restoring the 98-year old dam is estimated to cost $1.3 million, but Stancil says that, too, has been delayed by the glacial permitting process.

The photos below show the lake's water diverter, seen as it appeared while under construction in 1913, and as it looks today. They're taken from the picture gallery on the website of the Jack London Lake Alliance.