Bat House Forum

[flyin-lowe]

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/201 ... ary-Muncie

Looks like some Prof's from Ball State University are getting with the Audubon Society and having a seminar in February. I went to Ball State and only live about 15 miles away. I am going to try to attend if at all possible. I will let you know how it goes if I can make it.

[William Bagwell]

Sounds like a plan to me. I'm curious if Audubon encourages bat houses? Slightly more informative article here,
http://audubon.iweb.bsu.edu/monthly_programs.htm

[kent borcherding]

Looks to be an very informative workshop.

Tim Carter has done a lot of research using bat houses - studying Indiana bats . Has had success with the rocket boxes use by Indiana bats.

There are several great bat people in Indiana Dr. Tim Carter and {Dr. John Whitaker - at Indiana State University].

Both down to earth fine people.

[Terry Lobdell]

William, yes Audubon does encourage bat houses......I have done talks for the local Audubon group in Erie Pa of which I am a member.......

Kent, it is so good to hear from you! I've been wondering how you are doing?

On the subject of rocket boxes, I have noticed over the years that my big browns seem to be attracted to them more than other pole mounted boxes.......maybe because the center post acts like a heat sink to stabilize temps?

[flyin-lowe]

I attended the seminar tonight and it was really interesting. There was a broad range audience from children to elderly people. I am sure it was a tough crowd to speak to given the age and education page of the audience. It was about a two hour talk. The first half of the talk discussed the bats that are native in Indiana, including photos of characteristics of each species. They also had to live big brown bats that were walked around the room by grad students. One suffered from arthritis and could not fly and the other actually had one wing amputated after it was broken so they are both "pets" of the lab at Ball State University. I guess the bats are used to crowds but the two grad students each had a glove on and the bats hung from the glove and were walked around the room for about an hour and half and pretty much hung still and let people look at them and pet them.
The second half was spent discussing topics like white nose syndrome, wind turbines, migration routes, current studies etc. He also had dead "lab specimens" of all the types of bats from Indiana that were in plastic display cases. These were all passed around and it was neat to physically see the size difference between the bats. Overall it was informative and I am glad I went.

[Terry Lobdell]

I do a lot of talks on bats and bat houses and you are right that it is difficult to speak to a wide age range........you gotta keep the interest of the kids and at the same time answer questions the adults have........It is refreshing to see people become more aware of the importance of bats!

[Markcuda]

It is refreshing to see people become more aware of the importance of bats!

I am ashamed that it took me so long

[flyin-lowe]

I was surprised that there was no discussion on bat houses. And really nobody in the crowd asked much about them during the Q&A at the end. Some people asked about attraction techniques and he told about proper house placement and then directed them to the BCI web site. One person did ask about adding guano under the house. Dr. Carter did mention that "I am a bat biologist, and I can't even get bats in my bat house". I don't know where he lives so I am not sure if he is buy water or not. One stat that I did find interesting and I never thought about was the fact that bats only have 1 pup per year. He said if they found a cure for white nose syndrome today it would take 500 years to get the population levels back to where they were just a few years ago when WNS started killing bats in the US.