Why Gandhi wouldn’t step on an ant

WE’VE had bats around our house for years – pipistrelles, the smallest of Irish bats – and on these early summer nights we see them regularly.

All winter, they hang out – if that’s the word – in a small, wooden, garden shed where they seem to live between the ceiling lining of black polythene and the tar-paper roof. They continue to reside there, despite the shed being lifted, swung on a gantry and relocated at least twice in the last few years.

They are site-faithful, like swallows. However, they are resident and don’t have to fly from South Africa, find Ireland, then find west Cork and, finally, the very stable they were born in. The in-built logic is that if they were safe in a nest upon its rafters, their offspring will be too. The swifts follow the same survival tactic; they find ruined Timoleague Abbey after a 6,000 mile flight. They are back again this year, I rejoice to say, skimming the rooftops of the village, hunting in packs, screaming as they go.