mosquito problem...bats and bat houses?

I heard that bats love mosquitos in their diet and was wondering if anyone ever had a bathouse
and if bats ever moved in? The mosquitos are awful this year.

I haven't yet built my bathouse, but I have the plans for one. I did however, buy my dad one years ago from WBU. And yes, it's full of bats. So much so, that when I build mine, he would like another.

well thats good news! did you get your bat house plans online? i read they should be put on poles or can be put on eaves of buildings....where does your dad have his?
i sure appreciate the information terry.

Another member here by the name of Equilibrium sent them to me in an e-mail as an attachment. I thought I had it saved after I'd printed them, but I don't see them. I know she's on vacation right now, so maybe send her a d-mail? She'll get it when she returns.

My dad mounted his up on the side of his detached garage, just under the eave and the soffit. I always call it a gable, but I really don't know the correct term. You know how the side makes a triangle just under the roof? Right up there, facing west.

I found the thread where she told me about the plans and everything else she knows about bats. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/606238/

thanks terry....i sure appreciate the information. yeah ...I know what you're describing
about the eaves...i went out and checked on husbands shop and its like you described.
think that where to put it if it worked for your dad. and thanks for the link!!

Wow! I'd love to get a copy of those plans, too!

As far as I know, Equil's not home yet. As soon as she is, I'll let her know, if she doesn't find this thread on her own!

zville...if you'd like, when i find some plans, i can let you know.

terryr...thanks so much for the information. i've been looking online for some
plans too.

I had looked online before Equil told me about, and e-mailed, the plans she had. Hers are the best I've seen. If you can just be a patient a little bit longer, she should be home shortly ;0)

ok terryr....good idea. :)

This sounds good to me, too. We have bats in our neighborhood and we definitely want to encourage them to eat the bugs in our yard. We love to sit out on our back screened porch at dusk and watch the bats dive for bugs.

If she's not home this week, I'd be very surprised. Let's just keep moving this up, so she finds it when she returns. I've sent her a d-mail, since sometimes she doesn't really check her e-mail, but she's going to check into DG as soon as she's home!

appreciate it terry! saw a couple visiting bats last night...i'd like to get them to move
closer to the home area.

zville....i'm with you...they're pretty interesting critters and good to have around.

My husband works in a distribution center. He had a guy last night tell him that there was a bat in the building and the bat kept landing on the guys shoulders!

Equil called this morning while I was running around. I'm under the impression that she's still not home, but she said she'd try me later. When she calls, I'll make sure to tell her that people are waiting on her and to get her behind home! lol.....

I will be back next Sunday. First time I've logged on in weeks. When I get home, I'll do my best to start going through darn near a month's worth of e-mail and such. If anyone wants the plans, I'd be more than happy to share them. Please send me a d-mail with your e-mail address and I will forward photos, the excel file of the materials, and the actual blueprints to you from my personal e-mail address. I'll stick bat house plans in the subject line for those of you who need to dig me out of spam. Sorry I can't get to them now. I will bookmark this thread. Again, really sorry I can't get the plans out to people who want them because I know what it's like wanting something that you can't get your hands on. Incidentally, even if you do construct and install your bat house now... it is highly unlikely you would be blessed with inhabitants at this time of year. Next spring would be the optimal time. Bat house placement can be kind of tricky but there are a few rules of thumb to help you select the site. I'll try to dig up those threads when I get home too. Be back next week, Lauren

Ta da! She speaks! LOL! She did call me back, but I see now that she's posted. One of the threads she's talking about I think, is the one I linked above where she's telling me about placement of the house. She'll explain it all when she gets home. Thanks to you all for being so patient!

i dmailed lauren as you suggested and sure appreciate your help, terry!

You're welcome! She's been gone a lot longer than she had originally thought, but they sure are seeing a lot of cool things!

I'm not gone that much longer than what I originally planned! Just a few days longer is all ;)

Why terryr, I just re-read this thread and you already posted the bat thread I was going to try to start searching down to share here. Thank you very much for saving me a ton of time finding that thread. I'm so darn tired it isn't even funny. I think I need a rest from vacationing.

Ladies, I'm on the old computer while the raid (sp?) on my new computer is being rebuilt or something. Turns out one of my brand new hard drives was bad and crashed. It was under warranty but if that isn't a bummer, I don't know what is. Good news is that the new computer also had an external hard drive that backed up all of my photos every night so no images are lost. That means I will be able to dig them up once I get over to pick up my computer in the next few days.

Why of course I did Equil. I always do all your work for you, don't you remember? You haven't been gone that long!! Get the dang computer back so you can send out the plans to all these nice people who patiently waited for you to come home ;0)

Thank you for doing my work for me. I'm always appreciative when you slave away as you do!

I'm trying. It's too darn hot and I'm too darn tired. I was supposed to go shopping for back to school supplies today and didn't even do that. I plan on taking some more nice naps here in the next few days.

Well, if not for those wooden nickels you throw my way sometimes, what would I ever do Master??

It is soooo hot! Unbelievably hot. Are you getting rain? Dry as a bone here. sigh.

'Howdy' beverly ..

Maybe, some of this info may help your efforts ..

A few on-line bat house plans ..
> http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/wildlife/ndblinds/smallbat.htm
> http://www.batcon.org/bhra/economyhouse.html
> http://www.batworld.org/bcs/BWbathouseplans.pdf
Johnson Bat House > http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/wildlife/ndblinds/johnbat.htm
> http://www.nps.gov/archive/cave/bathouse.htm

Some FAQ's > http://www.batcon.org/bhra/bhfaq.html

Naturally, these folks would rather sell you one .. (hee)
But, still a good chunk of info is available. > http://batroost.com/index.aspPageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=200

In case you want to 'familiarize' yourself a bit more > http://www.batconservation.org/content/Infobatarticles.html
The peice about the Tiger Moths was quite an interesting read!

I can only imagine that this'd be something well worth attending.
The 2007 6th Annual Bat Festival .. to be held on August 11, 2007
@ Indiana State University .. inTerre Haute, Indiana
> http://batconservation.org/content/Batfestival.html
I'll hafta check to see what programs may be taking place nearby (here).

- Magpye

Wooden nickels? Didn't we used to collect those as souvenirs from fairs and such as kids? You're worth far more than a wooden nickel, at least a $20 gold piece. If I had one I'd give it to you because you are sooooo good with search engines. I never have figured out how you dig up half the stuff you dig up while I run to a book hoping I've got the right book half the time and then there is this little problem of me loaning out books and then forgetting who I loaned them to. Speaking of your worth, thanks for the Mozilla tricks you taught me. I really appreciated that.

No rain here at all but it was raining when we drove home from the airport. It was a light rain, nothing to write home to mom about or anything. Some rain is better than no rain though even if it is only a half an inch. I understand it's been scorchingly hot here lately. Today it was pretty hot and the sun wasn't even out.

I've got the plans to the bat house and the excel materials list of materials somewhere on this hard drive as well as the other hard drives to the new computer but I don't have the photos on this computer. All photos were transferred to the new computer.

Say, this evening while we were eating dinner a little hummingbird hovered by the atrium doors as if to say, "I'm here, come and fill my feeder". I've never seen one looking in the kitchen like that. Normally they buzz to the feeder then buzz off then buzz back then buzz off. Cutest little hummingbird... almost as cute as a small brown bat. And, Mr. Big Brown Bat came out to survey the goodies a few minutes early this evening. I was sitting on the stoop to the front door talking on the phone waiting for some of my moths to appear and had just been commenting that he'd be out and about in ten minutes and there he was earlier than normal. He was flying all around with the B52 bomber dragonflies. It was an airborn smorgasbord.

Bed time for me.

Good morning Ms Equil! Oh, you make me blush...lol...you are welcome though ;)

The hummingbirds are probably indeed telling you to fill up the feeder! We had one once long time ago in AR, that just kept flitting up and down the window, looking in. My mom had just refreshed all the feeders, but this bird just kept coming to the window. I had a feeling something wasn't right, so I went outside and tilted the feeders, sure enough air bubbles! My mom didn't get the air out and food at the bottom, so the hummingbird was letting me know she was hungry and couldn't get any food. After I got the air out, she drank and drank, then flew to the window, right in front of where I was and just hovered, like she was saying thank you! It was pretty funny!

We got rain baby! I stood outside in my barefeet at around 4:30-5am in the deluge routing rain water to my barrels and filling up jugs for reserves. My bet is we received at least 2". We sure did need it.

The hummingbird feeder was full. I'll go run outside right now and check for air bubbles. Be back.

I thought it odd that it was looking in the windows at us when the feeders were filled. Two out of three of my feeders had air bubbles. Eesh, I wonder how many times I've done that. I never thought to check for air bubbles when flipping them to hang. Dumb dumb dumb.

Have to go shopping for school supplies now. I'm going to also pick up some grape jelly for my oriole feeder. I'm really excited about the oriole feeder. I hope I have as good of luck with that as I did with the hummingbird feeders.

My knowledge is just ever ending, isn't it?? LOL!!

No rain here. Cloudy this morning, but blue skies out right now and actual temp is 92, heat index is 105. I can't breath when I go outside. Earlier, we ran to special order some horizontal (square) lattice. When I got out of the car, my glasses fogged up!

Your heat index is 105 and our temps here at the house are that. But we have a really, really nice breeze so it really doesn't feel that bad.

Temps are the same here but I don't know what our heat index is. When I got in my car to go shopping my glasses fogged up. The humidity is out of this world with the rain we recently had. My rain gauge says we got 3".

Hummingbirds have been all over the feeder out back today. I feel guilt not realizing I was supposed to be shaking them to get rid of air bubbles.

Don't shake the feeder, just tip it to get all the air bubbles out. You'll know because you can see it start to come out the feeder holes.

No breeze to speak of. Just sticky, hot, humid yuck.

Shaking them worked. They went glug glug glug and all the air bubbles rose to the top. Mr. Big Brown Bat was out again earlier this evening by 5-10 minutes again. We must really have a bumper crop of skeeters with the recent rains we've been having for him to be coming out earlier than normal.

Duh, it gets darker earlier now than before we left for vacation. That's why Mr. B. B. Bat is coming out 5-10 minutes earlier.

OMG, I forgot!! They did a story the other night on Davenport news. An elderly lady it seems, has a little trouble with bats in her house. They called a guy and the news channel people, who went out with the night vision gear and eeeekkk!!! They guesstimated she had over 800 bats in there!! Bat guana (sp) all over, in the hugest piles I've ever seen. Clusters of up to 50 hanging in areas, they were down between the inside walls and the outside walls. And they said the house shook when the bats were moving around at dusk time.

That's a public health threat. Have they removed them yet?

rain? did someone mention rain??? it's so hot and dry here...and after june...i never thought i'd be hoping for the wet stuff. here's hoping we all get a nice soaking rain in the very near future.

We need rain really, really bad!! Having to water everyday to keep things alive.

same here pepper. i spent all evening running around moving sprinklers...but the plants seemed grateful this morning.

I watered my melons today and that was it. The ground was still wet enough I didn't need to. Yeah!! Actually the melons didn't need it either but better safe than sorry.