Rescue Bat Loves His First Time Eating Grapes
An adorable Australian rescue bat has found a love for grapes after snacking on them for the first time.
Footage of the 12-week-old bat, named Jason by Denise Wade, who has been caring for injured baby bats for more than a decade, was posted on June 25.
“I’ve never yet met a bat who didn’t love grapes, and you can clearly see the enjoyment on Jason’s face as he tucks in,” Wade wrote in the YouTube caption.
Wade added that plucking is a crucial skill for life in the wild, “as some fruits require plucking and holding in the mouth before flying off to a tree to eat the prize in peace and without competition.”
The footage was posted online by Queensland-based Denise Wade, who has been caring for injured baby bats for more than a decade.
Attending to the injured bats at her home in Rochedale South, she regularly shares updates on the animals to her Batzilla the Bat YouTube and Facebook pages. Credit: Batzilla the Bat via Storyful
Video Transcript
- Well, the little man's all grown up now, and he's learning the fine art of grape plucking. This is no longer baby Jason. This is master Jason. He's about 12 weeks now, and very fortunate to get hold of some grapes. Wait. Which he clearly enjoys, and he can pluck them up quite nicely now. That's a skill that he may or may not require in the wild, but I'm sure there are certain things that need to be plucked like grapes. Very good things, aren't they?
So he's got a full set of chompers now, and he's living full time out in the flight aviary. I haven't seen him fly yet. But he may well be flying at night. Oh he's enjoying those, isn't he? He's going to grab hold of it and then pull it off.
Grapes are a favorite for our bats in care, even though they're not something that they generally get in the wild. You can't eat the blanket. You need-- no, the grapes, dear. You need to eat the grapes. So hopefully, he's the last baby till orphan season starts again. And can go anything from late September, but usually into October when we start the whole thing over again. Squish those grapes up, yummy.
So he'll have lots of practice doing lots of things before he's soft-released back to the wild. I think he's pausing for a bath there. [INAUDIBLE], haven't they? Yum. Won't be long now, and he will be going back to the wild. I think they're predicting more rain, which is rather unfortunate.
It's good he created a nice spat. Just what we need him to do. He's going to have another go. He's got it. By George, I think he's got it, sort of. Yeah, just eat them while they're still on the stem, that's OK. That's fine. Good man.
