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BANG FOR THE BITE
If 10,000 Biters each made a home for a small bat colony, the resulting bats could eat 800 million mosquitoes every night. More bats = less bug spray.
COCKTAIL FACT
Bats are the only mammals that can fly (without an airplane). Flying squirrels are mammals too, but they don't really fly.
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home › tip library › Natural Mosquito Repellents
Looking for a natural way to steer skeeters away?
The Bite
Spring has arrived, and soon, so will the mosquitoes. To keep these pests at bay, skip pesticides and bug zappers and put a bat house in your yard.
The Benefits
- Many species of these misunderstood mammals are nature’s best control measure for night-flying insects like mosquitos. The little brown myotis, common across North America, can eat 2,000 in a night.
- Electric "bug zappers" use more energy every month than two computers. Plus, these energy-suckers don’t catch a lot of blood-suckers: mostly they zap beneficial insects and harmless critters that would otherwise be food for birds, bats or fish.
- The pesticide malathion, often used in mosquito control, interferes with the normal function of the nervous system and is highly toxic to frogs, honeybees, and other wildlife.
- Dwindling habitats worldwide threatens bats’ survival, but bat houses can help. The odds of attracting bats with a well-built and mounted bat house are good - occupancy rates are up to 80%.
Personally Speaking
Jen recently got a made-in-Montana bat house from Planet Natural, and she can’t wait for her new neighbors to move in - as long as they don’t fly too close to her head as the bats in her grandma’s barn did.
Wanna Try?
- Planet Natural - attractive cedar bat house attaches to walls or trees and can accommodate up to 40 bats ($40).
- Bat-chelor Pad - designed for cooler locations preferred by solitary males, but is suitable for a small nursing colony ($28).
- Build a Bat House - feeling batty and crafty? Build your own bat abode using these free plans.
- Bat Conservation International - learn about the 1,100 species of bats (1/4 of the world’s mammal species!), become a member, or support conservation by purchasing bat-themed gifts and bat houses.
Have a bat story to tell? Visit the Ideal Bite blog and share your ideas (or just read about Jen's harrowing "near-death" experiences with the little critters).
Apr 06,2006
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Love / Hate with Bats
So of course we get scared over bats. They are not particularly cute, and they fly like some sparrow that has just done a line of coke. Plus, we usually have some childhood memory of a bat flying too close for comfort. I have had two:
1. I used to sleep in my grandma's hay barn, and I have this vivid memory of her chasing the bats out of our loft with a broom. It was kind of like this comedic horror movie.
2. I lived in Guatemala in 1997 for a few months, and did this river cave hike, whereby we had to swim through this opening in the earth with only 1 foot of an air opening between the water and the cave entrance. We frightened the bats that were all sleeping in the cavernous Fourier, and about 20 flew out as I was trying to go in. I figured if I could get through that without having a heart attack, I could do the 3 mile hike into the center of the earth where this serene underground lake finalized the end of the hike.
Anyway, my bat house isn't inhabited yet, but spring is almost here, and so I am hopeful. Come on bats, promise I won't splat you with a broom or scream if you fly to close to my head. Bring on the bats.
Off to put some bedding around the bat house - Jen
Biter Comments...
Also remember bat houses must be 12 feet above ground and with clear flight path -- ie not in the middle of a bunch of trees. The Bat Conservation International has lots of info on bat houses.
I hate to be a party pooper, but apparently it's a myth that bats are great for mosquito control. They'll eat mosquitos, but they prefer the larger moths, flies, and beetles. Purple martins aren't major mosquito predators either. You're better off with frogs, snails, spiders, dragonflies, or even goldfish. This article from the _Mother Earth News_ (August/September 2003) has more information:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural_health/2003_August_September/Outsmarting_Mosquitos
FUNNY STORY (at my expense): Many moons ago, in one of my lesser abodes, I returned home to a dark house and before turning on the lights I drew the drapes. Something dislodged from the drapery rod, brushed past my hand AND MY HEAD and I heard what sounded like a Pterodactyl. I was TERRIFIED! As soon as I located the lights, which was no easy task in my nerves, I saw A GIANT BAT circling my head. (Well, it SEEMED like a Giant at the time.) I tried unsuccessfully to shoo him (or her) towards the open door with no luck. I got a broom to shoo him with no luck. I tried to swat him down from his circular assault with no luck. After about an hour, I called the SPCA for help. They laughed. I called the Police for help (I know what you're saying, but I was only 18 with no family nearby). They laughed. (I do too, NOW!) So I did what any red-blooded ARIES would do. I left. I left the house. I left the front door wide open hoping the bat could leave and I left. I was gone for an hour or two and when I returned he wasn’t in the living room, but I JUST KNEW he was still there in the house, hiding and waiting for me to fall asleep so he could suck the blood from my neck just like Dracula. I didn't live there much longer. As scared as I was then, CAN YOU IMAGINE how scared that poor little bat was?!
Oh my...brings back memories for me too. I lived in an older house with an attic that became infested with bats for one season only (thank goodness). Over the course of the summer, approx 17 bats flew threw the house, most of the time circling my bed at 2 or 3 in the morning. Naturally, I learned to keep the bedroom door closed. One night, in a very sleepy state, I opened the bedroom door to access the bathroom at about 3 a.m. - a bat few RIGHT AT MY FACE, and then it's radar kicked in and it did a quick turnback as I slammed the door. There I was, trapped in my bedroom with a full bladder and adrenaline racing. I had to get quite imaginitive in relieving myself...and stayed tucked in my room until the morning light encouraged the bat back to it's daylight hiding place.
I'm getting married next summer, hopefully at an my in-laws Michigan house, which is surrounded by beautiful woods. I want to have a super eco-friendly wedding, but my mother (who laughed and shook her head when I told her I wanted invitations with wildflower seeds embedded in them) is worried about having an outdoor wedding with the possibility of being murdered by mosquitos. My mother in law suggested spraying the area for one night (they have a few bat houses but that won't be enough). Is there a better way to ensure my guests' comfort without giving in to even one night of bad eco behavior?
Dear Brite World and Laura, your bat stories rock. I used to date an Aries so it is understandable you did the dramatic thing. ;-) And Laurie - just how did you relieve yourself? Bring it on... this is coming from a girl who is not shy about the fact that I have peed in a soda pop bottle on a road trip when my friend wouldn't stop. (No, my aim isn't that good, I cut off the bottle neck part with my swiss army knife.) ciao.. jb
Is there anywhere I can go to find out the liklihood of bats moving into a roost in my area? I'm in the desert, but there's a huge population about 90 miles away in Carlsbad Caverns.
I have a recipe for ecofriendly bug spray, but you can also use it to spray the surrounding area. The spray does not kill them they just do not like the smell. The company we are partnered with also has a lotion that will deter the little creatures. http://www.stayinhomeandlovinit.com/cgi-bin/team.cgi?id=id237305&action=show
OMG Bat Stories! And just when I thought I was going to get to take this tale to my grave. Back in high school one of my best friend's mothers was a VP at the local community college. Whenever we had big assignments due we would go and use their library While one night in May we were waiting for our parents to pick us up When I noticed bats circling rather high above. My take was I'm not going to bother them as long as they don't bother me. Unfortunatly my friend Kelly wasn't as brave. She threw a pair of gym shorts from her bag over her head and dived under a nearby car. It looked like a crime scene and she was planning on staying there until our ride arrived. Unfortunately the car's owner finished gradeing his classes papers a bit early and he was forced to dislodge Kelly and her shorts covered head. She promptly lodged herself under a nearby picnic table where she stayed until she could dart into my daddy's car when he picked us up.
Lori- I would want more evidence than found in Mother Earth News...A grad student being eaten alive by mosquitoes while near a bat roost is hardly scientific evidence against bats' effectiveness as mosquito control. It's possible he had too many lights on; bats use the darkness to their advantage since moths and mosquitoes can see *them* when it is too light out. It's possible that during the time of year he was there, there was a new hatching of another insect that attracted the bats' attention more fully. A certain potrion of the diet in a backyard bat will most certainly be mosquitoes, since they are one of the most prevalent night flying insects in your typical, over-manicured backyard, and they are present during most of the warmer season, often even hatching from melting snow. Bats that don't migrate must have a food source throughout the season they aren't hibernating; when juicy moths are low in volume, other insects fill up the diet (like mice do for wolves in the arctic while the caribou are nowhere in sight). Per, BCI, the 20 million free-tailed bats from Bracken Cave in Central Texas, eat more than 200 tons of insects in a single mid-summer night, and it is almost statistically impossible that none of those are mosquitoes from someone's backyard.
But even if bat houses aren't the perfect solution to mosquito control for every backyard, they are ecologically and economically important for numerous food, timber, and fiber crops. So, even if you aren't positive a bat house will comtrol your mosquitoes, think what it will do for your health when less pesticides are needed on the food you eat, because your bats are cleaning up the beetles at the local farm...
how do you get the bats to move in?
I'm a children's book author/illustrator who has a new picture book out this week--BATS AT THE BEACH, which describes a fun, summery night for a group of fuzzy bats and what they do when THEY go for a night at the beach...
I've been living with bats, both on the page and in my attic, for the last three years, and have really learned to love the little critters!
On the mosquito front, I've also read that moths make up the largest percentage of a bat's diet (the reason I read was that mosquitoes typically fly lower than bats do), though they CAN eat more than 1,000 mosquitoes in a night. We've been using the Mosquito Magnet for the last four years, and though the people who sold us our house couldn't go outside after dusk in the summer (vernal pools nearby--breeding grounds!), we can be out for several hours without getting bitten. We've got the propane-only Mosquito Magnet--no electricity--and it attracts ONLY breeding female mosquitoes, midges and black flies. And now that I've heard I'm not taking away the bats' main source of food, my eco-pangs have been reduced.
My best bat story: "The Hitchhiker." The week after I sent BATS AT THE BEACH off to my editor for consideration, my family were guests on a friend's boat for a three-day sail from Boston > Gloucester > Salem >Boston. Leaving Gloucester Harbor on the second day, we noticed something fluttering around the top of the mast, repeatedly diving at the sail. A bat! Apparently, it'd taken refuge in a groove in the mast, and in raising the sail, we'd dislodged it. Poor thing was just trying to get back to its roost and rest! After about fifteen minutes, it landed on the boat's cabin, crawled to the base of the mast, and maneuvered itself upside down behind two pulleys, hanging from a rubber gasket. It slept there the whole day. That evening, as we lay at anchor, we noticed that it was waking. It stretched out one wing, then the other, then flew off into the darkening sky toward the town of.... Salem, MA. We wondered if our bat was just off to see some relatives.
Once I got back from the trip, I found a letter from my editor--BATS AT THE BEACH had been accepted for publication! Was our hitchhiker a good omen?
I put up a big nursery bat house about 10 years ago, because the mosquitoes were driving me nuts (I live near Portland, Oregon). I haven't had too many occupants (but a few), and I haven't noticed any change in the mosquito population. However as I learn more about bats, I keep the house up for the benefit of the bats. They are fascinating creatures.
In real estate it's all about location, location, location, and bat houses are no different. Bats tend to roost within 1/4 mile of a larger body of water, since they must drink while "on the wing" from a pond, stream, etc. Anything bathtub-size or larger will do. Thus if you do not live near water, the chances of attracting bats to your yard are slim. But, you can also put in a pond, which is what I did. They will drink from swimming pools if they can't find water elsewhere. Needless to say, that is not the greatest water to be drinking.
They like their houses quite warm, up high, away from trees where owls can wait for them to emerge (can you say "belfry"? :-). So at least 12' off the ground, on a pole or building/chimney, facing southeast (to catch the morning sun) is ideal.
The comments about mosquitoes not being the bats' "first choice" are correct. To a bat, a moth or beetle is like a big, delicious entree. A mosquito or gnat is like a few grains of rice. If you're starving, which would you choose? Thus when moths are not available, the bats will eat mosquitoes. A researcher once measured one bat eating mosquitoes in a controlled environment, and determined that the bat consumed 1200 mosquitoes in ONE HOUR. Multiply that by a colony of 30+ bats, and they will undoubtedly have SOME effect on the mosquitoes. I once read that if a human could eat at the same rate as a nursing mother bat, they would need to eat 40 large pizzas, every day. What a metabolism!
Many bat species are in decline, and providing roosting space for them is one of the best things you can do (the other best thing is to protect their hibernation places, usually caves). In nature, they roost in standing dead trees, either under the peeling bark or in the decaying center. They also roost in cliff crevices and caves. How many of these do you find in your neighborhood?
If you get a bat in your bedroom, you can probably just close the door, open the window and it will find its way out. If the bat did not fly in the window, you may have bats living in your attic, in/around your chimney, or even under loose siding (recall, they are looking for something that looks like loose bark or a hollow tree). Young bats are fairly curious and not able to fly very well, so they may wander down to other parts of the house.
Bats "take off" by gliding downward. They cannot easily take off from the ground. This explains why they seem to fly right at you when you are in the middle of a room with a bat in it. They need to get enough "air speed" to be able to make the turn at the other side of the room. Thus if you are in a room with a bat, don't stand in the middle of the room.
You should never pick up a bat with bare hands. There are several reasons for this:
1. If a bat is on the ground/floor, it is probably sick or injured.
2. Like all wild animals, bats will act in self defense if you try to pick them up. i.e. they will bite you and make all kinds of racket.
3. Having a sick animal bite you is a very, very bad idea. Though very rare, bats can carry rabies.
As others have mentioned, the BCI site (www.batcon.org) is a treasure trove of information on bats. Another good resource regarding bat houses is the Bat House Forum, see the attached link.
Sorry, here is the link to the Bat House Forum: http://www.batnic.org/forum/
CATNIP, plant it~rub it~wear it...
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nwgardens/90412_lovejoy10.shtml
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Lori | April 06, 2006 at 08:38 AM