My wife found a bat furiously clinging to our screen door Tuesday
evening.  Yesterday, I spotted one flying around outside a friend's
house.  It was pretty neat watching it pick bugs right out of the air.

Do you have any bat stories you can tell us?

37 responses total.

A lot of people will see bats flying (usually just after sundown) and
mistake them for birds. You can through a stick up in the air, and
bats will fly tight circles around it (birds will scatter).

(I meant "throw", of course.)

I have lots of bats around my house. They may roost in the barn, but
I've never actually seen any in there.  I bought a bat house a couple
of years ago but I have yet to figure out how to get it where I want it.
I need a very tall ladder.

Bat Conservation International recently published an issue of their
newsletter with extensive studies of successful bat house designs,
and some plans for their most recent recommended designs. If you
are interested in bats, you should join BCI P.O. Box 162603, Austin,
TX 78716-2603). You'll be seeing more bats now, because the young
of this year are flying now, and have to put on a lot of "fat" to
prepare for their first hibernation.

Once a bat got into the building where I used to work.  It was one of those
office/retail buildings in Dearborn.  Our office was in the basement if you
came in the main entrance, the 1st floor if you came in the back.  There was
a resturant at the end of the hall.  Our office didn't have a restroom of its
own so we had to use the public one out in the hall.  The poor little bat got
in somehow and was flying up and down the hall just below ceiling height (the
typical mall 15-20 feet up).  I was the only one in the office for three days
that would go out into the hall to go to the restroom or to the restaurant for
dinner (I should mention that I worked the late shift, prime time for bat
flights).  It was funny to hear the other woman squeal when the poor thing flew
past.  They all thought I was crazy and that the bat would fly into me and get
stuck in my hair.  I told them that they were all nuts and he wouldn't even
get close and that there was nothing to be afraid of, but they wouldn't even
consider venturing out into the hall until the building super came and informed
us that the bat had been captured and removed from the building.

There are swarms of bats all around the neighborhood every evening.
A bat once strayed into our house, and I was able to capture it in
a butterfly net and release it out a window.

re #4: That was my theory for the sudden increase in my sighting of bats.
Thanks for the info on BCI, too.

We were treated to a beautiful display of feeding bats in front of
a restroom in a state park in the Blue Mountains of Washington. Moths
were attracted by the light, but we were in the dark under an overhang.
More bats than meteors in the recent "shower" (pun).

One August *two* bats got in through a gap in the screen door.  They must have
been flying around for hours until I woke up at 2 am and saw one flying over
the bed.  Not wanting to stick around and not having a butterfly net, I flung
open all the windows, went to an all-night diner, and waited for dawn.

There were no mosquitoes in the house when I got back.

Bats seldom eat mosquitos. They aren't worth the investment of energy.
Beetles and moths are preferred. Bats are beginning to "swarm" at this
time. "Swarming" is when adult bats show newborn bats around the territory,
and alternative hibernation sites. The adults are also checking them out.
They will come into houses, since houses are potential hibernacula. 
Anyway, opening the windows was a good idea, though I have caught the
bat (in a box, not a net) and put him/her outside. But, I would like to
know, why didn't you want to stick around? Bats are fascinating, and you
had a marvelous opportunity to study its behavior. 

Of what I could see in the darkness, it did nothing but happily fly around
in circles.  The other one was in another room, I found out later.

When I turned on the lights one of them parked on the window screen and the
other one was in a box of books.  I'm sure they were fascinating, but at the
time I was a little impatient about the whole thing.  I think they were
Little Brown bats.

A year ago I had the fortune of seeing the nightly swarm of bats emerging
from under the Congress Street bridge in Austin.  Not everyone knows that
the bridge they show on the credits for "Austin City Limits" has an enormous
bat colony under it.

They just did an article on the Bats of Austin (and the bridge) on the
ABC National News.

I was down in Austin last summer and saw the bats emerge from
underneath the bridge.  It was amazing.

I've just built myself a couple of bat houses.  Now, hopefully, I'll
attract some bats.

What design did you use, Dan?

I have a bat house but need help affixing it to someplace high up. Same 
goes for my owl house.

I got the plans from the state of Indiana, but they seem to be plans 
from BCI.

You should see what they are saying about bats on Kitchan #85 pumpkin :-}. But
bring your sense of humor, it's really gotten silly.

I have a bat story.  Last summer, I was getting ready for work.  I was in the 
bathroom and had just put rollers in my hair, when I saw a black object
flittering above me.  I hurried and got out of the house and went to get a
friend.  WhjWhen he came back there was no bat that we could see.  So he (my
friend) left. I came back at noon only to see the bat hanging from my kitchen
door.  Again I went to get my friend.  He came back and we couldn't find it. 
This process went on for a week.   Finally, one day I was going to getmy
thermos from the kitchen and the bat flew out of it.  Luckily we were able to
get it out of the house.  This story always brings back memories, because my
friend always joked  with me telling me that I had lost my senses

There was no need for you to leave the house. Open the door, or a window,
and after a while the bat will find his/her way out again. Simple. I think
it neat, though, that the bat chose the thermos as a place to roost. Was
it upright on a counter? Do you think the bat was trapped in it because
of the smooth sides (and lack of room to fly)? By the way, there are no
black bats. Some are dark brown, the the silver-haired bat has many white
hairs among black. What month was it, by the way?

Most people fear bats and want to kill them.  Bats are essential to quite
a few things and it is worth while to join and support Bat Conservation
International.  

I have a bat house and it gets a few bats in it, but if you are making one
be sure to use rough sawn lumber and DO NOT put any paint, stain, varnish,
oil, or other finish on it.  The finish keeps them away.  Even a new house
will take at least a season of weathering to be satisfactory to bats.  

I had wasps in mine, and they aparantly coexisted, but I used a long thin
piece of wood trim to knock the wasps down on a chilly morning (so they 
were not too active - wear a hat, long sleeves, gloves, and button your 
collar)

Somewhere I read that in a bat's lifetime, they each eat enough insects
to equal $20 worth of insecticide.  I dont know if this is accurate or 
not, but they are really tough on mosquitos.

Most people I know really like bats.  

Don't most insectiverous bats generally eat insects larger than
mosquitoes? 

I'll bet that most of the people you know are well informed.  I work 
regularly with people who think if it moves, kill it.

As for insects larger than mosquitos, you could be right, but a lot
of non-scientific articles indicate that they are voracious eaters
of mosquitos.  I have lots of bats since I am near a fenn (bog) and 
the bats are swooping at small insects constantly.

The few bats I've caught (because they came inside) are mouse-sized and
have mouths which are pretty small.  I dunno ! 

Well, speaking of bats, the McPoz bat house is occupied again.  

Congratulations! 

Bats feed mostly on moths, in terms of net nutrition - bigger and juicer.

We better get out box up.

I have a small quano farm starting.

This item has been linked from Nature 30 to Intro 24.
Type "join nature" at the Ok: prompt for discussion of
bats, squirrels, and other living beasties.

We had a bat in our house last night.  It came in while someone was walking
out.  We opened the doors and let it fly around.  After about 10 minutes it
left.  Boy, these things are silent flyers!

The "swarming" season for bats is beginning. This is the period during
which the bats mate, and they also show the young from this year possible
hibernation sites. Most bat-human contacts occur during this period. 

Well, let's hope they are out there snarfing up tons of insects, then.

They are doing that too. They have to build up their fat reserves for
hibernation - a real problem for this year's young, as they didn't learn
to fly until the first third or half of the summer was gone.

Well, I checked our bat house on 4/15/97 and we have one small bat shivering
in the corner.  

How did you ascertain that it was 'shivering'? 

Well, It was all huddled in a corner - must have been shivering, right?

Bats go into torpor quite readily - they lower their body temperature. It
is like what they do in hibernation, except they aren't hibernating - just
idling. They don't shiver in torpor, but will while reving up again.

QUICK, GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!

Well in this case, I just felt sorry for the bat because it was so cold and
I doubt if there is much food for it.  I sort of imagined that it had to be
shivering. 

It probably is difficult for bats. They would come out of hibernation
in early April, and normally would have a few warm days for insects
to hatch - especially moths. This continuous cold is probably stretching
them a bit - though they can go into torpor, and save fuel a bit.

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