Bat House Forum

[cloudman75]

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I put up my bat house number 6 two days ago. This is an unventilated existing bat house used last year by mostly freetail bats. I did some necessary repairs and relocated it on a 21 ft pole near my trailer shed. It faces due west.
This makes a total of 3 existing houses and three new cedar houses waiting for bats to arrive in 2011.
Now I can rest and watch the snow if it comes again in the metro Atlanta area.

Frank

[po boy]

Frank,

How much open space do you have in front of those?

[cloudman75]

Po boy
There is a lot of space 50 to 100ft. If you scroll down and look at my post 2011 bat houses on hollow pole it shows
some of the space. The bats usually do a 180 degree turn and fly into the woods. How they miss the trees at full
speed ahead I don't know. I have a very large amateur radio tower with guy ropes in the back yard that also does not bother them. It is up about 55 ft at the top.
I also have the houses on poles at least 16 ft above ground with most close to 20 ft. That allows the little novice flyers
room to gain air speed when they first learn to fly.

Frank

[Terry Lobdell]

Nice pictures Frank! I'm looking forward to hearing about your progress this season!

Your numbers of bats seem to be increasing each year........I've noticed at certain sites I monitor in good habitat the numbers go up each year......would you say your's are increasing by a certain percentage each year?

[cloudman75]

Terry,
My bats have gone up in number each year but not as much as I expected from the number that leave out. I began with 17 in the attic louver about 7 years ago, and now have in excess of 200 leaving out. Only a hundred or so come back in spring and I suspect the others do not survive hibernation. I have gained over 50 freetails and some smaller bats plus a visit or two from big browns at times. I am hoping that with 6 houses and room for over a thousand bats maybe I will get a colony of big browns here. With several houses full of bats last year I could not get an accurate count as they came out too fast from different locations. I will be anxious to see what happens this year and if the cedar houses are accepted by the bats.

Frank

[BrackishBatter]

I am also eager to see if the bats take to the cedar fence houses.