Bat House Forum

[Gary Springer]

One of the 400+ bats in my bat houses in North Georgia is pure white.

It is an awesome sight when it flies!!!!!!!

Does anyone know anything about the rates of albino occurrences in bats?

Thank you,

Gary Springer

[Joe Spencer]

I don't Gary. But this is fantastic. Is there anyway you can photograph it for us?

[Gary Springer]

I don't watch the bats emerge every night, so I really don't have a true history of the white bat's roosting tendencies.

However, unless it was just a chance matching of the event and with the evenings I was able to observe, it appears that after staying in one bat house for about three weeks, it moved to another bat house that is about 15 feet away.

Then, after observing it emerge from the second bat house three times in 3 sittings within a two week period, I didn't see the white bat at all for 4 observations of emergence over a two week time period.

Now, it has returned and I've seen it 3 observtion nights in a row during an 8 day period.

As I said before, I don't have a way to get a photo of the bat without disturbing them, and, I don't think I'd be able to get a decent quality photo any way.

But, having a white bat that is readily distinguishable from the others provides information about the variability of roosting sites.

Wish I had been able to observe the emergence on a more regular basis.

It will be interesting to see if it returns year after year.

I do not believe it was one of the pups raised in the bat house.

The very first time I saw it, it seemed to be larger than most pups.

But, the first observation was in fact when the pups began to emerge. Perhaps the white color made it seem larger, or, perhaps it was a pup of a larger species than some of the smaller pups that emerged.

I'll never know for sure if it was a new pup or if it just happened to locate the colony and join.

I don't even know what species it is. None of the bat or wildlife biologists in Gerogia are intersted enough to drive one minute from an exit off the most heavily traveled interstate in the state to take a peak at what I've got going on here. I'd tried without success several times over the last 5 years to raise interest in what I'm doing because no one in northeast georgia foothills is having success with bathouses. When the white bat emerged, I thought it would be easy to get someone to come out here and take a look. They said they would, but that was more than a month ago and I've heard nothing. You can draw your own conclusion.