All Hail the Mighty Huntress
So there we were, sitting on the couch watching Season 1 of "How I Met Your Mother" when we heard a high pitched squeaking noise. I muted the TV for a moment, but the noise stopped, so we assumed it was in the show. (We were watching the episode where they got to a really loud club, so that wasn't a completely unreasonable assumption.) Thirty seconds later we heard it again, and this time when I muted, we could still hear it. Being masters of logical reasoning, we quickly surmised that this meant it was *not* coming from the background noise on the TV.
Larry, being the designated Killer of Ugly Bugs and Investigator of Strange Noises, cautiously crept up the stairs, where he discovered our cat, Boo, sitting on the stairs playing enthusiastically with one of her catnip mice. The furry brown one... that makes high pitched squeaking noises when she bats it... AND HAS WINGS!! Yeah, the cat caught a bat. In our house. And it somehow got to the landing on the stairs, away from any possible place it could have come in. Yikes.
If the squeaking was any indication, the poor little thing was completely traumatized by having become a cat toy, so Larry scooped it up and took it outside. I guess it wasn't physically injured, because it flew away immediately, and we could see it wheeling above the rooftops as it retreated to a less cat-infested spot. The cat was incredibly disgruntled to have been deprived of a fun new toy, and she wandered around the landing mrowring her displeasure and sniffing hopefully for quite some time.
I have no idea how it got in. My best guess is through one of the chimneys, which are blocked off with plywood, but not sealed or capped. It was a little bitty thing, no bigger than the palm of Larry's hand, so based on that, I'm thinking it was an evening bat or an eastern pipistrelle. (It was pretty dark in the stairwell so I didn't get a good look at the coloring.) Whatever it was, it was a cute little thing, and I hope it's recovered from its encounter with the Mighty Huntress.

