Bat House Forum

[Terry Lobdell]

Dave, these are really good photos of interior crevices...........something I need to practice!

[Dave Miller]

Dave, these are really good photos of interior crevices...........something I need to practice!

Yes that is a skill we all need to acquire and it does indeed take quite a bit of practice! It always takes me a while to "dial in" the focus (since I have to focus manually). Also don't forget to orient the camera so the flash reaches up into the crevices. See this thread: photographing-bats-t634.html

[Dave Miller]

Checked the bat houses at the refuge yesterday. Only saw two bats, which is a little disappointing. Lots of wasp activity as usual.

East house (2 bats at upper center):


West house (no bats):

[Joe Spencer]

Thanks for the updates Dave!

[Dave Miller]

From 9/8/10:

East house, empty:


West house, 3 bats in lower right:


Also I mentioned a while back about a project to save the chimney at an old farm house on the refuge, which now functions as the refuge office. The USFWS was going to tear down the chimney because they do not use it, and it needed some repointing work. I offered to do the repointing and remove the cap, so that the chimney could be used by swifts and/or bats. Well they ended up saving the chimney and removed the cap in April. On 8/11 we observed about 6 Vaux's swifts using the chimney for the first time. On 8/15 I did another count (4 swifts) and took these pictures of swifts and later, bats (I don't think the bats are using the chimney, they just feed in that area). I did a count on 9/8 and there were 13 swifts using the chimney.

Blurry photo of swift entering chimney:


Bat in flight. It is incredibly hard to get a decent photo of a bat in flight.

[Dave Miller]

I checked the bat houses last night. 2 bats in east house, 1 bat in west house.

East house, two bats in upper left:

West house, one bat in lower left. Note that it appears to be hanging from the slate.

[Dave Miller]

I just heard from a friend that the snag on which the east house was mounted has broken off at the ground in recent winds. This is the house that is shown in the header of this forum. He said the bat house appears undamaged. If that is true, then I am 2/2 with bat houses surviving the demise of the snag on which they are mounted. Guess I am lucky.

I'll check things out when I am at the refuge on the 15th.

This house has been occupied every summer, with a max of 5 Little Browns. I'll get it back up on another snag (or live tree clear of branches, if there is one) before the bats return in the spring.

For reference, here is the house in June 2008:

[Dave Miller]

I brought the bat house home on Saturday. The tree fell onto another fallen log, with the bottom of the bat house resting on the other log. A mouse had apparently found it and had chewed up a lot of the insulation to make a nest in the attic chamber. The bat house had only very slight damage to one edge of one of the slates. I was incredibly lucky.

Today I was trying to shake out all of the pieces of foam and to my surprise a whole bunch of lady bugs fell out:


I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. There were also some box elder bugs, and a few lethargic paper wasps. I did not see any "bat bugs".

I plan to remove the interior partitions and make them into a single unit which I can remove for cleaning.

I found a live tree in the same area which has a long section of trunk that is clear of branches. I'm going to try mounting the bat house there and see what happens.

[Dave Miller]

I partially disassembled one of the bat houses yesterday.

What I found:
- Bats did indeed use the attic space (there were droppings in it)
- There were dozens of ladybugs and a few other beetles in the attic space
- The rigid insulation delaminated, thus the sheet of bark which had been glued to the bottom of the insulation was sitting on the floor of the attic. Important lesson there. I decided to completely remove the insulation and just glue the bark to the underside of the roof.
- Most of the droppings inside the house had fungus growing on them. Hmm... bats + fungus is usually really bad. But I assume this is some other kind of fungus.
- The slats need to be able to expand and shrink. A couple of them had split apart (they are only 1/4" thick). When I put them back I'll make sure they can expand (i.e. glued only at the top, vs. glued at all edges).

[Dave Miller]

I got the "fallen" bat house put back up on a tree at the refuge yesterday. There was a live tree nearby that had a long stretch of trunk with no branches so I thought I'd give that a try. I know that mounting houses on trees is generally a bad idea, but the only trees in this area are cottonwoods, which decay rapidly once they are dead (there are many beaver-killed cottonwoods in this area). So rather than put it on another dead tree which may fall soon, I thought I'd try a live one.

My son was home for spring break so he was my assistant.


I put an ID code on the bottom (ST1) to make it easier to organize my occupancy count photos.


A small panorama showing the scene. The previous location for this bat house was along the creek that you see on the left.


I also added a step to my mounting procedure (step 9 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/70097310@N ... 770522093/). I used a couple of bungee cords to hold the top of the house against the tree once I had the bottom two bolts in place. This makes it MUCH easier to drive the screws through the plate at the top of the house.

[Dave Miller]

I was at the refuge on Saturday leading some volunteers. Afterward I was going to check the bat houses but I noticed that a goose has set up her nest right above one of the bat houses so I decided not to disturb her. My bats don't usually show up until June anyway.



She has her head partially buried in her feathers, I think she is trying to blend in, to avoid gathering the attention of us and of predators.

I have seen geese nesting in the tops of a lot of the broken snags.

[Terry Lobdell]

Great picture Dave! Is that a Canadian goose?

[Dave Miller]

Great picture Dave! Is that a Canadian goose?

Sure is! There are thousands of them here in the winter, and a few that stay until early summer. Plus tons of other birds, and a few other creatures.

[cloudman75]

Dave those are great photos. I am still learning from some of your methods to take chamber shots. I don't seem to be getting better.
We have Canada geese on our large corps of engineer lakes here that no longer migrate. They stay year around. I have a lot of bats right now as spring is finally here. In a few weeks I will try to take some photos and post them of the pups born in May.

Frank

[Dave Miller]

First bat of 2011 for me (west house). In previous years the first bat showed up in June so this is a little early. Note that it is hanging on to the side of the house, I haven't noticed that before.



The east house appears empty, but there were some droppings below the house so it has apparently seen some use.