Bat House Forum

[Terry Lobdell]

I had an unexpected suprise Friday July 20th when I checked out a bat house I had mounted as part of an exclusion of little browns in 2005. This house had gone 2 years with no occupancy and I was expecting the same this year. As I approached I was shocked to see the ground covered with guano. From the accumulation I'm guessing there's got to be at least 100 little brown bats roosting in it! I can't wait to do an exit count and see exactly how many are in there!

Before Friday I was thinking my mistake was in mounting this bat house to the cottage I did the exclusion from. In the past couple years I have been observing a strong preference for pole mounted houses by little browns. In fact, this house is the first bat house mounted to a building I've had used as a maternity roost by little brown bats.

The location is near a natural lake and public beach in nw pa. I think I am going to get some bat stencils or decals so people more easily understand what it is and maybe will take an interest in the bats there........

[LarryH]

That is great to hear, Terry!  It seems that patience is the greatest asset when it comes to attracting bats, doesn't it.  This year has been on again and off again for the bats.  I think it is because of the strange weather we have had, with one week being in the 90's and the next week in the 50's, but there are times when the bat houses are totally full and other times when there are no bats at all.  We just got back home from a couple weeks of camping, and I was pleased to find the bat houses filled to capacity.
 
I wonder if it would be possible to get more people to take an interest in bats?  People have such a fear of bats that it amazes me. Last year they found 2 dead bats in our county, and all of the news media jumped at the opportunity to create mass hysteria about the pending rabies pandemic!  
 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

Bravo! it's good to hear that you have a no vacancy sign lit up. I am wondering if I ought to do the pole method as well.

[Terry Lobdell]

Larry, yes it has been a very off and on year for me. My big brown colony at home has split up, sometimes roosting together and sometimes apart.........Both my little brown and big brown maternity colonies have left altogether at times. Other colonies I have at different locations are increasing in numbers I think because of better locations closer to water. 

[Terry Lobdell]

Tonight I did the exit count...........92 little brown bats +/- 5 for error........I had guessed approx. 100 so I was very happy! The location is in a highly visible area so I am hoping to stencil some bat figures on the outside of the bat house so people know what it is when they walk by. The owner says there are no mosquitos around his cottage and I didn't see any in the 30 minutes I spent there counting!

[Joe Spencer]

Fantastic!

[LarryH]

I was mowing around the bat houses post this afternoon, and noticed a lot of new guano since I last mowed a couple weeks ago.  Most of the droppings appear to be big brown, which surprised me since we have had temperatures in the low to mid-90's for the past couple weeks.  But, I haven't seen any drop in the number of bats at the night light every night, so maybe they are staying through the hot period this time.  The small nursery colony is empty now -- all of the babies have started going out at night and they are roosting in other houses.

I am going to try to go out later to watch them emerge and see I can count them.

[LarryH]

I went out to watch the bats emerge tonight.  I counted 120 bats from the 2 houses.  I estimate that 75% of them were Big Browns, and the rest were Little Browns.  All of them immediately went in the direction of the creek that flows across the NE corner of our property.  I have gone down to the creek before to see if I could see any of them getting a drink, but I never have been able to see that.  I have seen Purple Martins skimming the water for bugs, but I'v never been able to see bats drink there.