Bat House Forum

[Erik]

Hi Bat House Lovers! Today was a beautiful day here and I managed to get some new views on bats in bat houses and tree roosts.
25 of the 50 bat houses that I have mounted on trees in a nearby forest are wide chambered bat houses. They work pretty well for Noctules and Long-eared bats, but the narrow roost entrance makes it hard to see or count all the bats in the bat house. Even estimating the number can be quite difficult.
To have a better look into the bat house without opening the bat house I have started using a mini Infrared camera on a long pole. By peeking into the bat house we can get a better idea of the number of bats in the bat house. However, in large clusters it is still hard to count the bats. Counting emerging bats is still the best, but also very time consuming.
In this video some images of bats in two of the best occupied bat houses. A great movie of bats inside a tree roost will follow soon.



greetings and wishing everyone a beautiful springtime!

Erik

P.S. it is a pity the YouTube quality is not that great! I will try to get a better version on line as well.

[Joe Spencer]

Erik, after I clicked on HQ the quality improved. I thought it was very good. Do you have a link that you could post for the camera that you used and or the specs? Maybe we can find an equivalent in the states. I find it amazing that so many more bat houses on trees are seemingly more successful in Europe than here in the U.S. and Canada.