Bat House Forum

[cloudman75]

I was surprised to find three very small, actually tiny, bats in my bat houses tonight. Two were in the unventilated house and one in the new cedar large well ventilated house. It was in the chamber that had a ceiling at the top of the baffles. We have had temps in the 70s and high 60s with nights above freezing, and I have seen a bat feeding for two nights. I did not take photos as I don't want to take a chance on driving the bats away. These bats have increased from one to about 6 over the years. I cannot get a
specific species on them, but they feed early, can take some cold weather and fly slower than Little Browns. I am pleased to see that the rough cedar baffles appear to provide adequate footing for bats.
I saw one of the feeding bats tonight fly out of a pine tree so I suppose it spends the very cold weather there. There are many dead pines with wood pecker holes in them on our property. There was only one bat in the houses last night around midnight. I checked tonight around 11:30.
checked about 11pm tonight Thurday, three bats in old cedar 3 chamber, one in unventilated house.
Frank

[William Bagwell]

I cannot get a specific species on them, but they feed early, can take some cold weather and fly slower than Little Browns.
Frank

Do they also fly straighter with less zig zaging? No others around at the moment to gage size and I do not remember noticing two different sizes last summer. Was not looking either... The one I was watching Tuesday evening seemed to zig zag less than I remember and made one pass that was so straight I thought at first is was a bird.
--
William

[cloudman75]

William they do a lot of turns and dips like most bats. They are small and flit around at slow speed. I saw three tonight in the bat houses. They do not like a light shining on them. Only one was feeding at dusk, the other two stayed in. These bats get out on warm days in winter and feed. They do go into topor, but not into months long hibernation. It was 64 here tonight at 7PM, but I feel winter has not departed yet. Our ground hog in Georgia predicted an early spring. I hope general Bureaugard Lee is right along with the one in PA.

Frank