Bat House Forum

[KenA]

Hi again,

This past week while I visited my sister who lives in rural Covington (closer to Jersey) about a hour east of Atlanta, I finally built and mounted a bat house I promised for them.  Every time I visit, I am thrilled to see all the bats that fly around at night so I thought a house would work well there.

I used .75" plywood that was precut to 24X24", grooved all interior surfaces, .75" spacing with one of the partitions in the middle lowered 5" for a landing pad.  1X6" sides and sloped roof, caulked and painted.  Even invited my young neices to make bat shaped cutouts as a stecil to spray paint bat shapes on the exterior.  I took a 8' long 4x4 and cut it in half.  Dug 2.5' hole that I put both 4' long pieces in, spaced exactly 3.5" apart, and dropped 2 80# bags of redi mix in the hole.  Now I had a firm mounting of two 1.5' high 4x4's sunk parallel with spacing for my 16' long 4x4 to slide in between.  Drilled 2 holes horizontally through all 3 4x4's, one near the bottom for a pivot, and another about a foot up for the other lag bolt that keeps the hole thing erect.  By mounting it this way, I get the entire 16' length of the house pole above ground.  And it makes it easy to lower by removed the upper stay bolt and pivoting the house pole slowly down to the ground.  Also, it is pretty much a 1 man operation this way if need be.

So, what I really wanted to know (after bragging about my handiwork above) is what kind of bats are these?  They seem to be year-round residents.  They look kind of smallish, like a mexican free tail, but don't migrate.  The house has only been up for 10 days and my sister says she does not think the bats are using it yet.  Not to worry, I believe they will move in shortly.

What species are these?

Thanks

KenA

[cloudman75]

KenA,

I am 50 miles due west on I 20 from Covington. We have little brown bats and some evening bats which are smaller. They do not hibernate but do migrate from here . I have only one that sticks around for the winter in topor on cold days. The other half dozen that stay in my bat houses leave for the winter. No one seems to lnow what this species does but it is thought that they go where it is warmer and stay active.

The little browns hibernate from Nov, until about the third week of March depending on the temp. in spring.

Cloudman 75 AKA/Frank