Bat House Forum

[cloudman75]

I got a photo last night of the smaller than little brown bats which literally hang with the little browns in my bat house.
Although it is not in focus very well it is easy to see that these little bats are grey looking in color compared side by side with the LBs. It may give a clue as to what they are. I have no idea. I have had a few for several years and there are now
about a dozen I have counted on exit. The photo is on Kodak easy share and I cannot attach it to post it.
I still have bats in three houses. I have not seen any big browns since the 3 I had left when it got hot. Also my little brown bats did not leave the bat houses this year around August as they usually do for a week or so. They stayed here all summer.
Normally they leave for hibernation in early Nov. or soon after a couple of below freezing nights with cold daytime temps.
I have not counted them recently but at last count there were about 150 total.

[Cheryl]

I'd like to know your State or general location. I have little gray-looking bats. Mine are freetails from CA or Mexico.

[cloudman75]

Metro Atlanta, GA area. We don't normally have free tails here. Thanks for reply

Frank

[Erik]

Hi Frank,
could you maybe post the picture? It is ok that is out of focus. I can't imagine that freetailed bats could be smaller than little brown bats.
Could be other species as well, and even maybe first year youngsters. In the hibernation counts here (Europe) we see Myotis-species adults that have brown fur, while their first year youngster have a grayish fur. A picture could help the identification.

greetings,
Erik

[cloudman75]

Eric,
I cannot post the photo but have no problem to email it. This is because I simply cannot get it to work on the forum. If you want to email me, I have a photo that is in good focus now, but the small gray bats are not that clear as they are not easily viewed compared to the little browns. They are not free tails as they are smaller. Also their wings are very narrow and fairly long for a bat this size. Their wings are shaped unlike the little browns and they are easily seen to be smaller. Some are first year others are maybe several years old. I have looked at a lot of photos and we have gray colored bats in my area. However all are as large or larger than little browns.
They may be pipistrelles of some sort with the light in the photo not being the true color. The little browns, however are true to color in the photo I took. If you or anyone wants me to email a photo, just send me an address
and I will email it. I leave on vacation tomorrow for a few days, but will be back next week.

Frank

[Joe Spencer]

Frank, if you have not already tried it, there is an attachment feature under the post box lower left. It will allow you to browse your computer and upload it if you have not already tried it. You may also email it to me as I will PM u my email address now.

[Joe Spencer]

Here are the bats Frank is speaking of above. Unfortunately my glasses are shot and I can't make out the greyish bats you are speaking of but the others are Big Browns and they do share roosts with other species. Could also be the young of the year but not sure. Anyone?

Frank-bats.jpg (314.37 KiB) Viewed 1780 times

[Terry Lobdell]

They look like something I'm not familiar with........I definitely recognized the big browns, but the small gray ones I'm not sure of........they don't look like little browns.........I have no idea!

[cloudman75]

The larger bats are little browns as they are much smaller than the three big browns I had this year. Take another look at their faces. If they turn out to be big browns, then I have been wrong for many years in identifying them which would not surprise me. I used a 10x on the photo. If you look on the right side you can see a face on one of the gray looking bats. The internet spelled it grey, you get the drift anyway I hope. I have never had any young to look like these in October, so they must be another species. I too am at a loss. Anyone else have any comments?

Frank

[Joe Spencer]

Frank are some photos. The big brown has just slightly less mouselike ears and they're more angled and longer than upright. Indeed these species do look similar but the big brown bat also has a darker facial mask. Both species have slightly different color variations sometimes based on genetics and location. Another distinguishing characteristic is that little brown bats have more facial fur which sometimes extends almost to the tip of the nose. Big browns have much less of the latter. If you look at my little avatar picture which is in the right column of all my posts, that is a picture of a big brown bat. It resembles the majority of bats I see (my poor eyesight) in your bat house. Big browns are also far more common in metro and city areas. Little browns eat far more insects that are near water. Big browns on average also feed higher near the tree tops with occasional dips down to feed while little browns feed primarily at lower levels than Big Browns. Below is a photo of a little brown bat. AS a suggestion I would get all the species common to Georgia and do a google image search and see if you can match up the grey bats to anything. Their ears in the photo are far more mouselike than the big browns so you certainly have something here. Anyway the best way to determine whether you have big browns or little browns when you are unsure is late in the year guano size when adults and pups are full size. The second photo below is guano size between little and big brown bats.

littlebrownbat-1.jpg (201.52 KiB) Viewed 1763 times

Guano samples I took in 2001, compare this to what you have:



Little brown Bat:



Big Brown BAt:



Similar looking HUH? But look at the slight more fur on the face and under the chin of the little brown than the Big Brown. That little brown needs a shave to make things even more confusing LOL. Also notice the ear on the little brown having a slight roundness jetting out and the Big brown having it narrower and straighter. All distinguishing characteristics.

Good luck on the greys.

[Erik]

Hi Frank,
that's a very interesting picture! I don't know everything about the bats in your neighborhood (that's in the State of Georgia, isn't it?*). but I know something about USA-bats and about identifying species.
There is one bat in the picture that shows itself very clearly and that has a face that I think I recognize. I will add a picture with the bat outlined. I also turned the picture 180 degrees. What you can see on this particular bat are the very distinct ears. The ears seem to be connected at the top of the head (or touch each other there). The ears also have a big anti-tragus. That is a skin flap that connects the edge of the ear with the cheek and sometimes almost the corner of the mouth of the bat. I have outlined the edge of what I think are the ears.
When I look at the USA bat species profiles only a few species have those kind of ears. Within the vesper bats only big eared bats, pallid bats and the spotted bats have ears that are connected or touch each other at the top of the head. It is clearly not one of those, so I I rule out all Vesper bats.
It is also not a Ghost-faced bat or a Leaf-nosed bat, so I think it must be a Free-tailed species. And they have wide ears that are (or seem to be) connected and have a large anti-tragus. As these are all quite rare in your area and I am not that familiar with identifying species within that family I will not try to put a name on it. But based on what I see it must be from that family. Some of the other "greyish" residents of your bat house seem to have similar wide ears, but they don't look up like this one, so it is more difficult to tell. Free-tailed bats and Bonneted bats are very rare in your area, but there have been a couple of sightings in the past.
I think you best e-mail the picture to BCI and ask them to identify the species.

As I am not that familiar with not full-grown pups from USA-species I might make a mistake, but when your picture is made recently all bats should be full-grown.

Good luck with solving this puzzle! I hope this mail was of any help, and if other members think I am wrong, please correct me!

Greetings, Erik

* I live in the Netherlands so I had to look it up.

Frank-bats_detail.jpg (90 KiB) Viewed 1742 times

[cloudman75]

Thanks for input Eric, and Joe.
I am of the opinion that these are freetails. I wrote an email to BCI to see if they would let me email the photo to them for the species ID. Also Joe, the brown bats with them are little browns judging from their size and droppings. What really throws me is how tiny the other little bats are and their droppings.I did not think freetails were that small. All my bats are about ready to leave for hibernation. I must say this has been an unusual year. I had three big browns for the first time and believe me they were big. They had pups a day or two after I noticed them. The pups along side the little brown pups were much larger and appeared darker. Now after getting a close look at these gray looking bats, I have never see any before in my area and that is interesting to me.
Bats never seem to fail with something new. I do plan to replace this bat house but will attach a baffle to the outside of the new house for the first spring so maybe they will remember. I am installing a very large house at least 6 feet wide and 3 ft tall if I can work out the mounting problems. If you have any pull with BCi Joe, maybe you could ask them to look at the photo I sent you, If that is in their normal procedures. It may be interesting. I know these bats are somewhat rare in this location.

Frank

[cloudman75]

Eric,
I forgot to mention that I believe I was wrong in my reply to you of Oct. 14 when I said these were not freetails. Based on your post I just read I think you are very correct. If you look at my Oct 14 post I said these have very narrow wings and long for a bat this size compared to a little brown. Narrow long wings are part of the description for Mexican freetails. They also can be a grayish color. I also emailed BCI to request they look at the photo if possible and ID these bats. Since your input and reading all about freetails I agree with you and Cheryl who suggested they might be freetails right off the bat. Lol. It is certainly uncommon to see these bats in metro Atlanta, Georgia.

Frank

[Joe Spencer]

Yes they do look like free tailed bats and there are two species the Mexican and Brazilian. Thanks for blowing up the photo until I get my glasses Erik it really helped me in seeing the photo.

[cloudman75]

Joe, Eric and Everyone,
Dianne Odegard@ BCI has agreed to look at the photo to ID the bats. I now am pretty sure they will be freetails , probably mexican. Very unusual here in metro Atlanta. I just sent the photo to Dianne.I'll post whenI hear from her.

Frank