Bat House Forum

[marius]

Hi, so happy to have found this site. We hung our bat house at the end of last summer and noticed they had moved in on May 11. Have searched the internet but not finding many answers to our questions. Hope some of you all can help. : )
First, some background: We live in Missouri, neighborhood at the edge of town. Think we have 8 bats. Now, the questions.
1. Does it bother bats if you look into their house with a flashlight? How often can you do it without bothering them? We've looked in twice since May 11 but don't want to scare them off. Also, is there a better time of day/night to look into the house?
2. Does it bother bats if you observe them leaving for the night? Have done this twice but because I don't know if it bothers them, have kept observations to about ten minutes.
3. How do I know if there are babies in the bat box?
4. How can we identify the specie? Think they are big browns, but not 100% sure. (They seem to fly in shallow arcs, slightly curved lines. Spouse things they are four to five inches long from snout to rump.)
5. Are bats bothered by noise? Such as ... lawnmowers, power washers ... and, didn't think of this but they are opposite the wall of room where my piano is. It is on the opposite wall from their house... but will piano music bother them? (Yeah, yeah, stop laughing. We are nutty about our bats and if music will bug them, I'm not going to play so much ... )
Okay, that's all for now and thanks in advance to any who can help.

[Terry Lobdell]

Welcome! I've observed bats with a flashlight for around 12 years and it does not seem to bother them.........I try not to shine a light on them when they have pups though.........here in NWPA that is in June.......Once the pups are bigger in July I will look at them with a light.........

Dusk right before they emerge is the best time to view them with a light........it does not bother them to watch them emerge.......

If you want to check for pups, after the mothers have left, you can shine a light up.......they will be pink in the first week then a grayish color afterwards.........But I try to avoid shining a light when pups are first born......

Little brown bat guano is about 1/16" in diameter and big brown bat guano is a good 1/8" to 5/32" in diameter.......a big difference between the two.......

I have never observed where noise of any kind has bothered bats.........I mow around bat boxes all the time.........however a bump against a bat house pole will cause them to fly out in mid-day........

Who knows......maybe they will like the music?

Keep us posted on your progress!

[cloudman75]

Hello and welcome.
Terry did a good job and I agree that my experience over several years agrees with all he said.
As for watching the bats emerge at dusk, I watch my litte browns several times a week often with guests and we talk normally. The bats fly a few ft. from me as I sit in a chair pretty close to the boxes so I can use a hand counter to know how many I have. Often times after the bats with pups have flown out, I shine a light up into the box and view the pups for about 30 seconds or less. I have never had the bats to leave although some do move around and try to hide from the light. Just don't shine a light on them for an extended period, and I think you will be ok no mater what species you have. I have had several species here.
I have about 60 pups right now about 3 weeks old or more and they will be flying in a couple of weeks. When they first begin to fly, I do not shine a light into the house. They have no skills at flying and I don't distract them in any way for several days as they are very shaky and sometimes comical with their efforts.
I know you must be happy right now to see the bats and congrats to you.

Frank

[marius]

Thanks for answers Terry and Frank! Much appreciated! Of course, you can probably guess that answers lead to more questions? (Smiling and hope you’ll indulge with more answers.)

1. Terry, how do you know when the bat babies are first born?
2. How do you know if you have male or female bats? (I’ve read that they roost separately.) Is there a skill about being able to see babies in the bat house? We both looked on two separate occasions, for just a few seconds, and all I saw was some blobs of fur. Maybe looking into bat houses, being able to see bat babies, is an acquired skill?
3. Has anyone here used those viewing cameras that nature centers, etc. use for viewing nesting bird boxes? If so, where would one put such a camera in the bat house? And, I’m assuming we’d need to put the camera in next year, before the bats arrive in the spring.

Okay, trying to not ask too many questions all at once. Very much appreciate hearing how close you can sit to the box, that we can have company, talk and such when the bats come out for the night.

I’ll let you all know if bats like piano music (haha). This is the ONLY site I found on the internet that talks about what to do, observe, etc. AFTER you’ve hung the bat house. Which brings me to one more question ... why do the bats do the ‘touch and go’ thing I read about in here, and have seen at our own bat house? The other night, one bat (or maybe more than one) kept coming back to the house and kind of flying around it. One bat even went back inside the house. ??

Thanks so much,
marius

[William Bagwell]

Do not get to watch ours as often as I want too due to my work hours, but have never observed the 'touch and go' at dusk. Have seen this behavior numerous times at dawn when they are returning to the roost. Attributed it to the small size and slickness of what they are roosting on? (Eaves of house...) Have added an auxiliary landing pad, in addition to the built in one, to my 'real' bat house. Curious to see if they will act differently with such a large rough surface to land against.

Tried to catch our new colony returning this morning but missed it (them?) by a few minutes.

Our behind the house colony tolerated my son noisily working on cars (including some arc welding) last summer and returned to the exact same spot this year. Have read some where that old established colonies are much more tolerant of disturbances than newly formed ones. Can not verify the accuracy of this but it seems quite logical to me.

Oh, welcome to the forum!

William

[cloudman75]

I have noticed the comeback and touch and go many times including last night. I really don't know for sure but I think they do it for several reasons. I have observed them doing it to encourage others to exit the house. I have also observed them with pups coming back after a short feeding and water time to nurse their pups and check on them. They also may be teaching the pups to eat insects they have captured shortly after their exit. They stay a short while and then leave. This is all my speculation after observation for several years. I am retired, an old dude, and spend a lot of time watching the bats. It's just a guess on my part but the bats seem to do it every year so it is part of their normal routine. I am speaking of Little Browns. If the bats are with pups and/or have gathered in numbers this time of the year they are most likely females. You can tell if they have pups by shining a light up into the house after the adults exit at dark. You will see the pups and they are tiny when first born, but grow rapidly. Don't keep the light on them too long. I have also observed the adults flying around the house while I was looking for pups, so they keep a watchful eye on the pups I think. I have also observed that when the bats take their pups with them shortly after they are born that they drop lower toward the ground to compensate for the extra weight of the attached pup in order to gain the
required flying speed. Keep us posted on your bats and observations.

Frank

[marius]

Oh ... this is just so much FUN!!! Thanks William and Frank for more information. Fun to read your stories and observations. I've just come in from watching the bats and for some reason (days having more light hours now?) the bats left the house when it was light enough to easily see them. Counted eight bats!

When I first got situated to wait and watch, there was a great deal of 'chatter' going on in the bat house. Chirping might be the better word. It went on for maybe a minute and was quite loud. Then one bat flew out and within ten minutes the other seven. One bat flew in three smallish circles in front of me, checking me out I guess. One bat left and went back in the bat house shortly after. When it seemed they had all left and I wasn't hearing any more chirping, I flashed the light into the box for 5 seconds. Saw five little bodies but there might have been more. Assume they are pups (which is new terminology for me - thanks for that). The pups look to be about half the size of the other bats. (And, right now I'm smiling so big my jaws are probably going to start hurting. Tee hee.)

Our bat house is 14 feet above ground, under the eaves of our house. Some of the bats did swoop pretty low to the ground when they came out. Not sure if that's because some are carrying babies or because of the height of the bat house.

And Frank/cloudman ... what a great thing to do with your retirement time! When did you first start watching and housing bats? We are retired too and am thinking we'll be doing a LOT of bat-watching this summer.

Oh ... not sure yet what kind of bats we have. Three of us tried to measure the guano diameter and we agreed it seems mostly between 1/16 inch and 1/8 inch. Our friend said, "Is there such a thing as a "medium" brown bat?" Since I'm somewhat of a bird-watcher, am wondering ... can anybody here identify a bat by the chirps/sounds it makes? That's a useful identification method for birds. I'll look around for answers on the Internet but if anyone knows links for bat sounds, I'm all ears.

Anyway, I'm in bat heaven and so happy to find there are others there with me.

Thanks again for all the help,
marius

[cloudman75]

Marius,
I've been an active bat watcher going on 7 years now. My wife and I are leaving for a few days R&R for our wedding anniversary tomorrow morning. I'll be looking forward to your posts when we return the latter part of next week. It appears that you are well on your way to have a large colony in a few years.
What size house do you have? How many chambers? Is it store bought or home built? What state you live in may help identify what species that you could have. I suspect that there are some on the forum from your state that may contribute answers to your questions.

Frank

[marius]

Hi Frank,

To answer questions – a family member made the bat house. She used plans from our local conservation department (state of Missouri) but adapted them and our bat house seems to be not quite 3 feet tall. Here are the plans she used: http://mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/r ... 9_6553.pdf

The house has three chambers and is painted a medium dark-green, sort of a military green. Not sure about venting except for the front vent, but will check on that when we inspect the bat house this fall.

About the only place we could mount the house so it is high enough and also gets enough sun is on the SW corner of our home. That means hot afternoon sun and from what I’ve read, big browns would not like that: already had about a week of temperatures with heat index of 105F and the bats are still here. We watched last night and spouse, who is very visual, says the wing span of these bats is about nine-ten inches so maybe we have little browns.

Anyway, how you had a great anniversary trip and Happy Anniversary!

Marius

[Terry Lobdell]

Marius, sorry it's taken me so long to answer your questions....

It is hard to tell exactly when bats give birth.........the pups are very small when born and are hard to see...........I suspect my bats may go elsewhere to give birth because they often disappear for a few days around early/middle June then come back........

Probably the best way is to shine a light up inside after the mothers have left and you should see pups crawling around...........

My guess on determining male from female is if it is a single bat roosting it is a male........if it is a group clustered together they are females........I'm guessing a pair roosting tight together may also be female.......

I've never used a live cam but they are becoming more common.......supposedly easy to use as well........

Good question on the touch and go behavior.......Joe Spencer says it is "investigative behavior". Bats will do this when they swarm.........they do it a lot in the morning when they return to roost for the day...........Ive noticed over the years that bats seem to swarm more on humid evenings..........the more humid the more they swarm........I love watching this because they are such acrobatic flyers! It's also fun to watch them around a night light having a feeding frenzy over moths! I once watched two bats have a mid-air collision! They recovered though and kept flying.........
Keep us posted on your progress!

[William Bagwell]

I suspect my bats may go elsewhere to give birth because they often disappear for a few days around early/middle June then come back........

Frank, do yours do this too? Our 'moms' only stayed about a week this most recent visit and now only a few pups are left. Three pups roosting just a few feet away from where the adults were roosting. Very little guano being produced compared to before the moms left. Seem to recall a lull in the guano last year as well, coinciding with a 20 foot move. Perhaps the pups are not yet proficient feeders and producing less poop? Hope there is lone pup in the box as well though I have seen no evidence of of one for days.

William

[cloudman75]

William,
I have had the adults to leave for a couple of weeks several times and sometimes take their pups with them. They always came back. Also this year over a hundred bats left during our stormy weather and have not returned at all. I know that they have had pups. I only have about 60 adult bats now plus some of their pups have started to fly. I counted them last night and checked all my houses after the exit. At least half the pups are not flying yet but look like
they might start any day now. In April, I had about 200 bats here, so I don't know what has happened. I should have over a hundred flying soon so guess I
won't complain.

Frank

[marius]

These are great stories you all. Now if our bats disappear I don't have to think they've left for good. Nice to know.

Had to look up bat swarms because I didn't know what those were. Reading about swarms and seeing you-tube videos makes me think I DO know about bat swarms ... from childhood.

There were about 20 kids in the neighbourhood where I grew up and in summer we would gather in the vacant two acre lot across our alley. It was simply a patch of mowed grass with trees and houses all around it. When it got dark enough, we all played “the bat game.” We only played it on certain nights when, for whatever reason, tons of bats would come out and zoom all over the sky. Never thought about how many bats there were but would guess now 50-100, maybe more.

The bat game involved getting little pieces of gravel and tossing the pieces into the air to see who could get a bat to dip the lowest to the ground. As it was explained by the older kids, the bats would chase the gravel, mistaking it for an insect. Sometimes a bat would come as low as three feet. This was in the early sixties before DDT sprayings. It was a very fun game and I have always liked bats since those days.

-Marius