(no subject)

[ewt]

Lovely evening with shevek. I got some of my heavy grocery shopping done, since he has wheels. It's very strange doing grocery shopping and not worrying about how I am going to get 10kg of potatoes home. I forgot to get vast quantities of tinned tomatoes. Oops. Another time. I can always take my wheely suitcase.

I slept reasonably, although I didn't get to bed until after midnight and I was stiff and sore when I got up, again. Must further pursue new mattress stuff.

Some random bird spent the night in the loft. It woke up when I flushed the toilet (lots of plumbing lives in the loft), and started flying around all scared and confused, the poor thing. I don't know why it didn't wake with the dawn chorus. Maybe it was too tired after all the fireworks. shevek heard it and kindly went to investigate, when he opened the window it got out pretty fast.

I don't know how it got in; most of the loft ceiling is covered with loft insulation stuff. I think it must have come in under the eaves at the northwest corner, there is a bit of a draught coming from there sometimes. No floorboards over that way, and lots of plumbing stuff, so I'll have to be very careful in going to investigate, if I do. I'm going for the "cross my fingers and hope it doesn't happen again" approach for the time being. Maybe the bird will tell all his/her birdy friends that the loft is scary, it's hard to get out of and a strange noise comes and wakes you. Or maybe when the fireworks are done the birds won't feel the need to come into the loft to sleep. I'll see what happens when the weather gets colder. It's probably a fairly simple job to plug the gap once I've found it. Maybe covering the window with a thick heavy curtain would make finding the gap easier.

I don't really want wild birds coming into my loft to sleep, even without bird 'flu concerns. I don't want birdshit on my things, I don't want to be responsible for getting birdshit on the landlady's things, and unhealthy birds could carry ticks, lice, fleas and so on, none of which I particularly want in the loft. Also it will just make the loft even more interesting to the cats that come to visit us, and I have a hard enough time getting them out of the loft if they go up there as it is. And if they can't get out easily then it won't be much fun for the birds either.

It was in there some or all of the night; it must have shat somewhere. I haven't found where yet. I'm not going to look immediately, that stuff is easier to deal with once it is dry.

If I have a bath now, the milkman will come for the milk money, won't he?

Comments

[cathawk.livejournal.com]

Okay...so I don't want to scare you, but are you sure it was a bird and not a bat? I ask because I've just learned that if people find a bat in their bedrooms, they are supposed to get rabies shots. Evidently bats can bite you when you sleep and most people won't detect it. Now maybe bats aren't a rabies vector around the UK?

[vashti.livejournal.com]

The UK is essentially rabies free, although there have been four cases of a variant in bats and one bat-related human death in Scotland. DEFRA have questions and answers, for all your rabies needs. (http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/rabies/default.htm)

[vashti.livejournal.com]

Further reading (my browser crashed and I lost the link, but it's the advice for bat workers PDF linked from the page I linked above) indicates that "No one is at risk from being in the same house as a bat in the UK". But if you are bitten or scratched, you have to be immunised.

And I think that's all I have to say about that. Except that bats are way cool, and being a bat worker sounds like a neat job.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I used to be a licensed bat-handler, and not once did I ever have to be immunised.

[cathawk.livejournal.com]

I like bats. But we discovered the risks the hard way recently when one of our cats killed one. I had no idea that having one in your bedroom was so risky in the U.S. So I'm glad to hear it's not an issues in the UK.

[cathawk.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've very glad to hear that!! :)

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it was a bird. I've seen bats enough to be able to tell the difference from the way they fly, I think, the same way I can tell ducks and geese apart from the way their wings behave in flight. And there's a window in the loft and bats mostly try to hide from light, and the bird flew out the window.

Further to this, I've not yet died of rabies, so I'm pretty sure I wasn't bitten by anything rabid.

Bats in the loft would still be a pretty serious problem though - I'm not sure if it's actually legal to disturb them, here.

I haven't heard any strange flappings from the loft today, so it looks like this may have been a one-off anyway.

[cathawk.livejournal.com]

Actually I believe rabies takes a couple of weeks to express. However, your UK friends state that the UK is generally rabies free. So even if it was a bat (which it sounds like it wasn't), it sounds like you're free and clear!!

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Odd, I was fairly certain onset of symptoms would be within 24 hours, but it turns out that's the recommended time before seeking vaccination. Have read up a bit more on it now, so now I know.

But yes, the UK has been free of rabies for years; comes of being an isolated island. It's conceivable that there could be problems in the future because of rats travelling through the Channel Tunnel, but so far there hasn't been a problem. The last death from indigenous rabies in this country occurred in 1902.

However, the Health Protection Agency's website says In 2003 it was recognised that UK bats may carry a rabies-like virus, European Bat Lyssavirus 2 (EBL2). A man who was a bat handler died from EBL2 infection probably acquired in Scotland. (http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/rabies/menu.htm) That's pretty recent and not necessarily conclusive evidence that all bats are dangerous, but it's good to be aware of it anyway. The Bat Conversation Trust (http://www.bats.org.uk) notes that in testing 4000 bats since 1986 only five bats infected with EBLV1 or EBLV2 have been found, and that bats (in the UK anyway) are not aggressive; they advise that there is no risk to people unless they approach or handle a bat. I do wonder whether this takes into account any behaviour alterations in the bats infected with ELBV1 or ELBV2, but it is rabies-like, not actual rabies, so it's entirely possible that symptoms in bats would be different from those of rabies.

All this and it was a bird anyway! Yay for things that nudge me to learn stuff.

:)

[cathawk.livejournal.com]

LOL...and you now know much more than you ever wanted, I'm sure!!

[sci.livejournal.com]

I had the milkman around this morning asking for money. First time ever! Only £5, and haven't been out of milk for two weeks! ^_^

I'll need to get him on camera or go to the dairy. Find out how people find out if they can get on a milk-round.