Knitted in the round and featuring bats flying in at their cave mouth, this is an easy pattern if you already know how to knit stranded colorwork and this pattern assumes that you do know how to knit stranded colorwork. If you have not knitted stranded colorwork before then this is an experienced level pattern.

Instructions are given for head sizes 18” (46 cm), 21” (53 cm), and 23” (58 cm). These correspond to child, small adult and medium-large adult sizes.

Fingering weight yarn. The sample was knitted with Happy Sheep Magic Sock Yarn.
SC: (sky color), BC: (bat and cave color)
Size 18” (46 cm), BC 70 yds (64 m), SC 44 yds (40 m)
Size 21” (53 cm), BC 87 yds (80 m), SC 48 yds (44 m)
Size 23” (58 cm), BC 105 yds (96 m), SC 61 yds (56 m)

Bats have been on Earth for more than 50 million years. With more than 1,400 species, they are the second largest order of mammals, and are widely dispersed across six continents. Globally, bats provide vital ecosystem services in the form of insect pest consumption, plant pollination, and seed dispersal, making them essential to the health of global ecosystems.
Few of nature’s animals are as misunderstood as bats, and sadly, bats are threatened all over the world, primarily because of humans, due to factors ranging from loss and fragmentation of habitat, diminished food supply (insecticides), destruction of roosts, disease and hunting or killing. Climate change is having a negative impact on many bat populations.
Endangered long-nosed bats inhabit desert regions of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, feeding on the nectar of desert flowers. Wild agaves provide a major food source, but these plants have been severely reduced by cattle grazing and by moonshiners who harvest them for making tequila. As long-nosed bats decline, their loss in turn threatens organ pipe, saguaro and other giant cacti.
In the UK, bat populations have declined considerably over the last century.
In Australia, populations of both the Grey-headed flying fox and Spectacled flying fox have declined by at least 95% in the past century, with massive losses in the past 30 years. Some researchers believe they could be functionally extinct by 2050. Flying foxes have suffered terribly at the hands of man. Without flying foxes, many Australian trees, including some commercially valuable eucalyptus, may not survive.