A Visitor in the Night

This is going to sound a bit like an opera plot: I was awoken the other night by furtive scrabbling sounds by the window of my room. Pulling back the curtains, I didn't see anything, so I tried to go back to sleep. In the morning I noticed evidence of a visitor in the form of little black "droppings" on the window sill. Without thinking I cleaned them up, but when I reported the incident to the desk downstairs I realized I should have left them as evidence. A bit later I noticed a couple of smaller droppings I missed, so the manager came up to view the scene. I had looked around, including under the bed, but saw nothing. However, they instituted a thorough search and, hours later, after I got back from lunch, they told me that my visitor was a bat! He flew through my partially-opened window and got hung up in the heavy curtains. They captured him for later release and thoroughly cleaned the room. Insects are not much of a problem in Austria so they don't usually have screens on the window.

Speaking of insects, when I was here as a student I noticed these huge hornets flying around a nest just outside the window of my practice studio. They were really huge, making thudding sounds as they bumped against the windowpane! Maybe screens might be a good idea...

Let's have some Heinrich Isaac. Not bat-related, here is his Virgo prudentissima for six voices:

And, as a bonus, here is the quite bat-related overture to Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss II: