Total Pageviews

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Bats Are Helpful


We can always tell when our bat population has returned because we stop being bitten by mosquitos. We put up a brood house for bats many years ago and each year they return to the same spot and work for us by eliminating our mosquito population and other night flying insect population. We sometimes see them leave at night and often observe them return in the morning. They migrate further south in the cold months but always return in the late spring or early summer. The same bat family has been coming to our house for many years. The rain this year has produced a healthy insect population for them to feed upon. We just hope they don't get so fat they can't migrate.

Mosquitos also carry heart worm which effects dogs but we don't have a problem with that as our summers are too short for the worm to mature in the mosquito. North of us about 100 miles at the lower elevation they occasionally have a random case of heart worm show up but our vets have never seen a case thanks to our short summers. Because our fur family were all rescues from other states we had them tested and they were free of any sign of heart worm.

Colorado has mosquitos that carry the West Nile virus and it has now reached the San Luis Valley and was found in a few horses. Thanks to our bat population we don't have any mosquitos around our house. These flying mammals are truly amazing. Their radar is so accurate that they can take mosquitos  out of the air efficiently. They eat an amazing amount of insects per night and hence we can go outside without concern of putting on bug goop or being bitten. Once the bats return we are free to be outside at night without the slightest concern of getting bitten. Bats are highly beneficial and we always look forward to their return each year.  Now if we could only get the biting flies to fly at night we would be totally free of annoying insects.

We have lived in cities where the city would go around at night and fog for mosquitos. We would much rather entice bats to live here than put up with that smelly and potentially dangerous fog that is spread to protect city dwellers. These small bats can eat up to 1 1/2 times their weight in mosquitos a night and when you have several in the family they eliminate your biting insect population. I guess attracting them to cities to replace fogging would freak city dwellers out. As for us we take care of our bats and they in turn take care of us.

3 comments:

Sakoieta said...

Excellent post!

Jane said...

So can one buy a bat cave for them, or did you make the one you’re showing?

Bruce said...

I made that one but I think they can be bought too...