Bat House Forum

[USVI Wildlife]

I'm doing a project in the Virgin Islands to provide artificial roost sites (bat houses) to hopefully increase population numbers of Pallas' Mastiff Bat Molossus molossus. I'm using the nursery colony design with 3 to 5 chambers. I have a HUGE number of questions! Let me just start with a couple:

Is it better to group houses within a certain area, or just spread them across the countryside? I'm wondering at what density I should install my houses.

What kind of temperature logger could I use inside the houses that would allow for easy access to the data?

Many thanks for thoughts.

[Joe Spencer]

I have used cheap indoor outdoor thermometers with a corded temperature probe on the end which has a clip. I then house it in a little box with a slanted roof mounted 6 feet up from the ground beneath the bat house and logged the temperatures daily or when I could. If you check out the first page of http://www.batbox.org you will see that many years ago he had a temp logger set up with his computer and you can see the data in the graphic however, I'm not sure of the status of that and how he did it. Maybe Erik or someone else would have some good suggestions. Cordless indoor outdoor thermometers work reasonably well and their range is usually 100ft. or less. Ideal for placing a bat house on a building on in the yard and keeping the main unit inside the home or building. I would place a plastic sandwich bag half way over the outdoor sensor to protect from guano and urine. IF the cordless sensor is thicker than 3/4" it won't fit in a chamber, only a bat house attic with more space which is always hotter and doesn't supply roosting area temp data. YOu could rectify this by cutting out a small portion of one of the partitions to accommodate the remote sensor. I would use a lithium battery for the remote sensor for longevity. Here is an example but I am sure there a better ones: http://www.amazon.com/Taylor-1456-Wirel ... B0001U6OYA. BCI may have more info on temperature logging as well.

BCI has always reported based on the bat house research project data, that in the U.S. and Canada that groups of bat houses in close proximity are more successful than those which are isolated.

Welcome to the forum!