I lived for 4 years at the edge of Wildcat Canyon in the Carmel Highlands, and countless times watched the bats emerge, silhouetted against the twilight sky. For the first couple weeks I thought they were swallows, until I was told otherwise by a neighbor. So I always have this memory of the bird-that-was-a-mammal.
And "glimpsed in silhouette" seems exactly right to me, I could only see them because they were drawn dark against that slightly paler, violet western sky.
So Alicia has it precisely right as far as I am concerned, as an erstwhile watcher of bats for 4 years.
(robt)
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