Bat

An unusual event today:  I decided to put away the sunshade we'd been using over our table on the veranda. Though it was a lovely day today and we all sat out for a while, the sunshade weather is past and over for this year! So I took it apart and opened up the shade so that I could fold it round more neatly, only to find a little furry ball inside.  Closer inspection revealed it to be a bat, too large I think for a pipistrelle, but I'm not well up on other species.  After a while, the bat decided it was perhaps time to move on;  it crawled up the fabric to a point at which it could take off, extended its wings, paused for a moment, and then flew across our garden and along the woodland edge, eventually disappearing into the trees.  I was sorry to have disturbed it;  maybe it would have been happy in our shed, but I don't know.  Was it intending to spend the winter in our sunshade, or had it just been hiding up there till evening?  Well, I hope it found somewhere comfortable and safe in the wood!