Bat House Forum

[kerbat]

I have a 12 chamber rocket that had mostly brazilian free tails in it (approx 100) when I left 3 weeks ago. Upon returning saturday , no bats at egress. Sunday night, one bat and this morning looks like a considerable number from the guano. This is the first year to really have a population in the rocket. I have a predator guard, but also have lots of owls. Have to wonder if the owls got braver when we were not here. Also be curious to see if I have pups tonight after egress, since there was a post that described a departure, but came back with pups. This is the birthing season here in south florida for BFT's??

Am happy to have found this forum, been looking for one and BCI put me on to this site

Bernie Kerr

PS, how do I post a picture on this forum?

[kerbat]

bats came back strong, 0 sat nite, 1 sun nite, and 106 tonight, no pups present so shot that theory down. Maybe the owl thing, don't know why they disappeared?

My wife keeps explaining to me they're not "MY" bats , they are wild bats :>}, yep they come and go as they darn well please.

Bernie

[BatMan]

Great news, mine have been coming and going as well. It is very discouraging to me but it's better to see them occasionally than to not have any at all. Like I have experienced in the past.

[Terry Lobdell]

I used to be disappointed when mine would leave, but now I just take it in stride because they always come back!

My big browns seem to move around more than the little browns. And they both seem to move around more right before giving birth. The big brown maternity colony of 15 here at my home has used 5 different houses on my property this year as well as leaving the premises entirely a few times. My little brown colony has used only 2 houses.

I think the main reason for the movement aside from weather is to escape parasites especially bat bugs.

[cloudman75]

My little browns have left twice. The first time they were gone for weeks, then came back and brought pups on May 31, 2008. On Sat. June 6 around dusk, they started moving the pups and by midnight, they were all gone from my large maternity house.There were 31 that left as near as I could count.

Last night on June 9, I decided to relocate a smaller house up to the same location beside my large maternity house. This small house has been empty this year. This morning when I checked there were many droppings under the little  house. Tonight, I counted 22 on exit. Afterwards I shined a light into the little bat house and it has a large number of pups which the adults transported back. I suspect that this is the same ones that left on Sat. Some of the pups are probably too large for the mothers to carry now. This has been one strange year for my bats. I am happy they are back again with their pups. There is something about the large house they do not like this year after 2 previous years of no problems. I suspect parasites because of the actions of the little pups. They could not be still and acted like something was biting them. I'll check it out this winter and kill any bugs in it.

[LarryH]

This indeed has been a strange year for the bats.  We were out of town the last couple weeks of March, but when we returned home we had a large population of bats in both houses.  Then, we got an unusually cold and wet spell -- got down into the high 30's at night and only to the 50's during the day.  All of a sudden, I didn't see any bats at all.  Then, by the first of May they were all back again, until we got another cold spell and they seemed to leave again.  Now they're all back again and are having pups.  I'm hoping that since they are now having the pups that they will stay the rest of the summer.  It has been unusually hot, both day and night, and I have seen the bats every night getting bugs under the night light.  The weather is cooling again, but it is supposed to only get down to the low 60's or high 50's at night, and back into the 80's during the day, so I don't think that will bother them too much. 

I've never had the bats move around as much as they have this year.  But, we don't seem to have many bugs this year either....

 

[kerbat]

Yep , continues to be weird had zero sat nite and a record tonight:). Had 183 best I could count at egress. I can handle    6 or 7 dropping out at and instant, but when 12-15 are dropping from all 4 sides, it gets tougher for the old man's brain to handle.

Bernie

[Terry Lobdell]

Bernie, it sounds like you have got a hot site there! Did you say this is only your first year for occupancy?

[kerbat]

Terry,

I've had intermittent occupancy since summer 07. We had bats in our house structure 3 times over last 10 years. Only once inside the attic. That time I got interested in bats because my eviction was to put a bright light and high frequency noise generator in the attic. Worked except that a pup was left deserted which PO'd me, so got on the internet and built a single chamber bat house. Painted it grey( south florida) and mounted it 12 feet up, east side hangar behind house, open approaches. Nothing for two years. Leaving the house at daybreak one morning last summer, noticed bats everywhere around the top of the steps. They were going in the corner of the vinyl sheathing. Moved the bat house over to just above their entrance and plugged their vinyl hole every other night. Had read pups can go 48 hours without milk. Don't think there were any pups and bats seemed happy and number jumped to over a 100. One hot day in august, they were hanging on the ramp in the afternoon because it was so hot. They left. Yuk, about a month later got another colony, but they were brazilain free tails and earlier colony was evening bats. BFT's have a very pungent odor. Had built my rocket house in meantime and mounted it on surplus utility pole away from house. Tried to move the bats in the house to that pole. The numbers dwindled over a week and were gone.

Remounted the small house back on our house this spring and ended up with bats in both boxes. Blocked the colony out of their small house and think they moved to the large rocket.

Obviously there is a good population in the area, but no one of the other 50 homes here at the airpark have had bats in their home or hangar.

I am going to mount another utility pole and put cross arms on it so that I can try different bat house designs on the pole. It will not be as hurrican resistant as my single rocket on the other pole. The rocket could house a lot of bats if the other houses come down in a hurricane.

Bernie

[BatMan]

My bats are back now, I counted 8-10. They circled the house a couple times then started dispersing and here came a hawk, I didn't see him get any but they all disappeared pretty fast.

[BatMan]

Did an exit count tonight- 6 bats, after they departed I got a flashlight and looked in the house and saw 10 pups running around inside the house.

I have noticed when the bats didn't have pups they would leave and not come back for sometime, with the pups they come back often to the house and fly around it and enter and exit quite often. Very interesting stuff

[Joe Spencer]

Am happy to have found this forum, been looking for one and BCI put me on to this site

Bernie Kerr

PS, how do I post a picture on this forum?

Glad to have ya here Bernie and thanks for reconfirming this frequent behavior by bats.  Click the link below for posting pictures which is in the forum help section:


http://www.batnic.org/forum/forum6/21.html