Bat House Forum

[LarryH]

We had a wonderful experience tonight with the bats, and I was able to get some pictures of them.   I was working on my RV in front of the garage, and we have a bright mercury vapor light on the peak of the garage that lights the entire driveway.  While working on the RV, I noticed something flying by me and just overhead.  I stopped to watch them, and discovered that it was bats soaring around the light catching bugs that are attracted to the light.  In one case, there was June Bug flying in towards the light and a bat showed up and snapped it out of the air right in front of me.  That was fascinating to see.

Here are some pictures of them that I cropped to get just the bats.  I hope they are clearly visible.

 


 


 

[Joe Spencer]

Nice Larry!  I wonder if it is a big brown bat?  Just curious?  What camera did you use.  Digital?  35mm other?   :thumbsup1:

[LarryH]

Thanks, Joe!  The pictures were taken with a digital camera.  It is an Olympus C-740 Ultra Zoom, 3.2 megapixel.  I took the pictures at 2048 x 1536 resolution.   The original picture is 28.44"w by 21.33"h, so I just cropped it to the portion with the bat in it. 

I was standing inside the garage, with the light above the doors, and the camera pointed up past the light.  I tried to focus on the bats, but by the time I located them in the veiw finder, they were gone.  So, I decided to just hold the camera steady and continually take pictures as fast at the camera would let me.  I took about 40 pictures, and when I downloaded them to the computer, there were just about 5 pictrures with bats in them, and these 3 were the ony ones that were clear.

I think they are the big brown bat.  It looked about that size as they flew by.

As a followup to the pictures, I continued working on the RV for a couple hours after I took those pictures and posted them.  Suddenly, I noticed that the bats weren't flying any more.  I looked over towards the light on the garage and noticed there weren't any bugs left -- they had been completely cleaned up.  The entire time I was working outside that night, I never got a single mosquito bite.