Wow Rhizo - that's wonderful. I moved my topic over to the "what are we reading" thread. I'm so glad you followed up. Thanks for posting this. I bet Dr. Tuttle is one interesting guy. Yes, bats are absolutely fascinating. I've always been interested in them and I'm quite concerned about the decline in numbers. In my state the number of deaths caused by white-nose syndrome is alarming.

Hi skibby,

Could you talk to some of the folks here who are more or less inclined to soil their underwear ...

... should a spider happen to come into their line of sight?

ole joyful

You mean ... I can't depend on you ...

...to help them work toward alleviation of their apprehension?

So sad!

(Edited: looks like I have bats in my belfry, skibby - I thought you were interested in spiders, not bats!

My apologies!

Senior's moment, I fear!).

o j

No senior moment OJ. I edited my comment. I am a spider fan.

Har har, Skibby......Depends.

Oh, bats! Cool! We put up a bat house three years ago, don't have residents yet. But I do see a pair of bats fly by about 15 minutes before sundown each summer day. So maybe someday....

Rhizo, that is so awesome! Have you been on one of the kayak tours here?

No to kayak tours, but have taken our boat to a big cave on Lake Guntersville.

I need a bat house. I love bats but they are messy and I don’t want them on the verandah. I’m tired of cleaning up after them. We like to have friends over and they don’t all feel comfortable being watched by them.

One of my fond memories is being at the lake house in Maine. I was still awake very late and my son asked me if I wanted to take a boat ride. Of course, I said yes and off we went in the pitch dark, then he turned on the boat lights and the sky was filled with bats, it was so beautiful. They looked like little angels having a fun time. We never did it again but it's in my memory forever.

Yaya, a similar event is in my memories forever. We spent every summer at Camp Pine Knot on Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks. Dad sometimes roused me out of bed to go night fishing, and the best part was skimming over the surface of the lake through the massive number of bats.

Bats are so interesting. We have tons of them living in the woods around our house and i love to stand out on the deck at night to watch them catching insects during the warm months. We sometimes have a lot of moths fluttering around the windows at night (attracted by the lights) and the bats will clear the windows within minutes. Its amazing to watch them swoop in without ever touching the glass.

Last summer we noticed piles of bat guano accumulating on one spot of the deck. We thought they were roosting during the day where the roof overhangs the deck, but further inspection found that was not the case. After doing some research we learned that they will rest for brief periods by hanging from something (In this are the wall of our house) while feeding and that when they are ready to resume hunting they defecate as they fly off. They tend to rest in the same spot which makes it difficult to discourage them. One solution would be to attach something slippery (like a large sheet of plexiglass) to the wall but we won't really want to do that.

They are currently hibernating or have migrated for the winter. When they return in the spring, we are hoping they wont return to that spot. If they do, I will resume doing what I did last year which Is to put a container under the resting spot to catch the droppings and then disposing of them.

We had a nice, sunny day in early January that reached 65F. I was out on the property burning some dead fall limbs most of the day. I noticed a lone bat that kept flying back and forth in the area where the smoke from my fire was drifting. I was surprised to see a bat here in the Kansas City area in broad daylight led alone January. It continued this flying back and forth for at least 3 hours and was swooping and darting around like he was catching insects.

There was an article in the Missouri Conservationist a couple months ago that talked about how they do population counts on Indiana Bats. They use thermal imaging to find Indiana bats that are roosting under tree bark and tree cavities. I found it very interesting.

I love bats. As a city dweller, I seldom saw them but since moving out to the boonies they are much more apparent, especially in that short window right before dark.

One of my fonder memories was a fossil hunting trip while my daughter was still quite small. We were in the back of beyond in the Okanogan area of WA state and while standing out on our tiny motel room balcony, you could see clouds of bats emerging just before fully dark from wherever they roosted during the day in the surrounding forests. She was only about 7 years old and the bats kinda freaked her out until her dad and I could explain to her satisfaction that a) they would not attack her and suck her blood (too many vampire cartoons - lol!!) and b) they ate huge quantities of nasty flying insects.

I'm not sure that she is convinced to this day of their benefit but it is still a delight to me to see them emerge and take up their duties right before night falls. But no 'clouds' here......just the few individuals swooping and soaring around.

We used to have lots of bats swooping around the streetlights at night in summer, catching insects. They've declined a lot, probably due to white nose disease. I really hope something can be done to help them

We've gone to the Congress Street Bridge in Austin several times, to watch the bats emerge at sunset. I believe there are over a million who emerge every night. Watching them is quite an experience.

I hope I'm able to post here - I can't seem to find my way around. I haven't been keepiing up like I used to because of health difficulities. I wanted to ask if there will be a bookmark exchange this year. If so, I'm interested and my address hasn't changed. Please excuse the long absence.

HU - You may be looking for the Reader's Paradise forum. I remember from having visited that site that they have done bookmark exchanges in the past. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/paradise