In Our Belfry

So we were sitting around earlier this evening chatting and Gumbo suddenly started paying a little too much attention to the magazine basket. He has liked to chew on the basket in the kitchen that has towels and such in it. Then we heard this sound.

We both looked at each other at the same time. April said, "What is that?" My first thought was that it kind of sounded like a cricket or some other bug, but I wasn't quite sure. and Gumbo was entirely too interested. So I went to investigate. Now we have rearranged the furniture, but in our current configuration, the basket sits right next to the shelf in the photo below in the corner of the room.










So I pull out the basket, I see a much larger something on the side of the basket than I expected.
I must have made some kind of noise when I realized what I was looking at, because April asked, "What is it?"

"A bat."

"A WHAT?!?"

"A B-A-T."

Then she starts freaking a little about keeping the animals away and hoping the thing doesn't decide to start flying around. Needless to say, I proceeded to put the poor little guy outside. He didn't seem very happy with me for pulling him out of his nice dark hiding spot and putting him out in the sun.

The crazy thing is that we haven't had any windows open since the middle of last week, so how long had he been there?