Mom, can we keep him???

[Ipassgas]

I was at a minor league night game with a group and looked up. I saw a couple of dozen bats flying around, being bats. I pointed up (40' above us) and some people were interested. The other half freaked out.

I'll never get being freaked out by a thing 40' away, that's probably been there for an hour.

Bats are awesome. Thanks for saving that one.

 

[My Old Tools]

I have had them chase high lobs on the tennis court and fishing lures cast a dusk in the pond. Almost all of ours head to Mexico for the winter.

 

[Empty Pockets]

I would like to have a few move in near me. The northern edge of our property is wooded, and throughout the rest, we have ample mosquitoes to support a bunch of bats

 

[The_Geologist]

When I was a kid (15 or so), I found one hanging upside down from the outside of the screen on my bedroom window. It'd gotten blown to our house by a thunderstorm earlier in the evening, I believe. It hung there for several hours before it recovered and left sometime after midnight. The moon was full that evening and it shone through the window, leaving a shadow on the floor. Thought it was pretty cool, actually. Heard the bat twitter a few times every once in a while, if I remember correctly.

If I'd had a camera, I'd have taken a pic at the time.

 

[JRC3]

I'm all for anything that eats bugs.

Back in my residential window cleaning heyday I'd stumble across them hiding between the downspout and fascia right below gutters. Nothing like being a few stories up while hanging off a ladder and having them fly out to get away from you.

I keep considering putting a bat house behind the garage. Not sure if they'd use it or not.

 

[bgarrett]

Similar story. A while back, some friends and I were out for a ride on our motorcycles and stopped at local watering hole with an outdoor patio. As were sitting there, a young lady was kind of checking out my buddy, gave him a smile then a look of horror came across her face and she let out an ear piercing scream. Turns out, my buddy had caught a bat in the hood of his sweatshirt as were riding and it decided to climb out after we had stopped. He remembered hitting it as we were riding but he thought that it was a leaf falling from a tree. We took the bat and placed it on a tree near the patio to recover so it could keep feasting on the other "Minnesota state bird" that we have in abundance here.

I showed up at a meeting on my 1946 Harley and after I sat down I realized there was a nasty brown wasp in my long sleeve shirt. I came out of that shirt in front of everyone!

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Nice to see a healthy one for a change. NJ is losing it's bats to White Nose Syndrome. I found one on my breezeway screen last March. It was WAAY too early to be out of hibernation for him. When I came home from work he was dead.

Tommy

 

[Aspen RT]

Cool!

 

[red61cj5]

The building I work in has some living in the elevator shafts, today one came out and demonstrated his worth to humanity by chasing a social worker up the hallway. I can relate. Some how, I didn't get all the details, the bat got knocked to the floor, where a patient picked him up, and promptly got bitten, so downstairs to the ER for shots.

 

[C2 Turbo]

If bitten, won't you have needed Tetanus/Rabies shots?

 

[TractorJeff]

I've lived in several states over the years and never saw a large bat. Or maybe just never really looked for them? Our current house had about 8 of the small bats when we moved in. They lived in the attic and the garage and the leaky eves of my closest neighbors house. After 14 years or so, I only see maybe two that fly out from my attic. Neighbor down the road has a Bat house mounted on a tree. I told him Bats go somewhere warm to hibernate in Winter. He didn't know that, he thought they stayed in the Bat house!

 

[olytdi]

Bat houses are another sort of overblown phenomenon. Females form maternity colonies and communally rear and raise their young in structures that allow for movement in order to thermoregulate. In an attic, for instance, the communal cluster of bats will hang from the inside of the roof and move up/down the roof as needed to maintain the cluster at a reasonable temperature. Males aggregate only by happenstance and are essentially bachelors and loners.

Backyard bat boxes really aren't useful for maternity colonies as they lack the mass to provide a stable and warm environment for the females and young. that's why they're in attics and barns and not in your bat box numbering in the hundreds. Almost all bats found in backyard bat boxes are males as are those found singly in warmer weather.

 

[olytdi]

I've lived in several states over the years and never saw a large bat. Or maybe just never really looked for them? Our current house had about 8 of the small bats when we moved in. They lived in the attic and the garage and the leaky eves of my closest neighbors house. After 14 years or so, I only see maybe two that fly out from my attic. Neighbor down the road has a Bat house mounted on a tree. I told him Bats go somewhere warm to hibernate in Winter. He didn't know that, he thought they stayed in the Bat house!

Jeff,

Bats cannot hibernate when it's warm. They have to lower their body temperature to a level just above freezing in order to suspend their metabolism enough to get through the winter on their fat stores. That's what hibernation (the state of torpor) is. Finding areas that provide a stable environment just above freezing is a limiting factor -- that is, only certain structures (usually caves or mines) can provide this.

Places where bats hibernate are called hibernacula and those that are used possess unique air flow characteristics that allow for these just-above-freezing temperatures (and additionally, humidity).

A bat could possibly survive a winter if kept warm all winter but at normal body temperature, with a metabolism to match, food would be the limiting factor. The bat would starve. Most North America bats are insectivors and there are few insects in winter.

Cheers -- glad to see such interest in bats!

 

[onewheat]

Had the little things in my attic for years. Every year they would work into the house and you have to kill them. Not fun being woken up by them.

I don't know why you'd have to kill it just because it got in the house? I had one flying around in our house one evening when we got home. You follow it around the house shutting doors behind you until it is in a smaller room. Hold a beach towel or large bath towel horizontally in your two hands and when it flys by you, pop your arms up and catch it in the towel and then bring your arms down and sort of bundle it up. Take it outside and open the towel back up and let it fly off. I have done that three times - twice in our wooded lot home and once on a houseboat trip. The first time it was tough to find in the house - eventually found it behind a curtain up near the rod. The second time, we got it in a room where it just continually circled with the ceiling fan. That one was EASY to catch - just timed it for 5 revolutions and grabbed it. The houseboat was 3 am, drunk and naked with my wife and she woke me up because something was "in the room" (really small rooms with low headroom) I dismissed it as a big moth as you could feel the wind and vibration every time it flew by our heads. Caught it with the towel too. Last time - there was one in the corner of out laundry sink in the basement. It was pretty dark and I thought it was a big wad of lint from the dryer emptying in there - second thought at the last minute and I turned on a light - GOOD THING as I almost grabbed it. I scooped it up with a piece of cardboard into a gerbil exercise ball so I could show the wife and kids. Turns out, it had a hole in one of its ears. We got a hold of someone through the Cincinnati Zoo who sent a "bat specialist" out to our house and he took it home to heal in a cage for several months until its ear hole closed up. He said that would mess up the sonar and that's probably how he ended up in our house. Sounded ok, but I had bats indoors 4 times, so dunno? He called us back a few month later so he could come back over to release it and it could go back with its colony by our house. Thought that was pretty cool!

 

[JRC3]

Backyard bat boxes really aren't useful for maternity colonies as they lack the mass to provide a stable and warm environment for the females and young. that's why they're in attics and barns and not in your bat box numbering in the hundreds. Almost all bats found in backyard bat boxes are males as are those found singly in warmer weather.

Well if a Motel6 (batbox) is all we joblows can do...

I wish I had more space for them.