I wanted to give everyone a little update as to our new friends that will hopefully be occupying the new bat house.

I was a little late in erecting the house because most temperate bat colonies start dispersing in late July as young begin flying. In August, most are in the process of migrating. I hope to have a few bats in the home before winter, so that when they roost to form a nursery in the spring they will flock in large numbers.

over 74% of iowas woodlands that gave bats a home have been deforested, bats prefer feeding grounds that are close to water, forest edges, and trees. They are attracted to Native:
Evening primrose
Phlox
Night flowering/Silene catchfly
Fleabane
Goldenrod

(These plants will attract night pollinators, like moths, which bats like to eat. ) Some moths can detect a bats’ echolocation and will avoid the area where bats are present. The location of the bat house is near all of these things (minus some of the native plants, but goldenrod is amongst the hill the bat house is on)

One bat eats about 2,000 to 6,000 insects each night. Many of the insects they eat include agricultural crop pests including the tomato horned worm, corn earworm, and many kinds of beetles. Bats also eat annoying insects like flies, mosquitoes, and gnats. agricultural pests including cutworm moths, chafer beetles, potato beetles and spotted cucumber beetles are also amongst their food preferences

Very few bats contract rabies. Over the last 50 years, less than 40 people have gotten rabies from a wild bat. Scientific studies have shown that less than 1% of wild bats test positive for rabies. Nation-wide, about 5% of bats sent to state laboratories test positive for rabies. This number is higher because sick individuals are more likely to be caught and turned in for testing. Most colonies from buildings contain no rabid individuals.

The bat house was made of cedar, with two chambers that will hold a few hundred bats, the chambers are longer vertically so that there is a temperature gradient throughout the day and that increases the chance of a population staying in the home.