Bats For Your Belfry

They've had worse press than your least favorite politician. They've been burned at the stake (yes, really) and accused of all sorts of crimes from sucking blood, to stampeding farm animals, carrying rabies, and attacking people's faces and hair. Tell a group of people that a rabid mugger is running down the streets and most of them will run for a video camera. Tell them that there's a bat flying overhead and mass hysteria ensues. You'd think it was a pterodactyl with a mouth the size of a jet engine rather than a four ounce mammal not much larger than your hand.

They're not terribly dangerous creatures. A bat's teeth are smaller than your cat's teeth and (unlike your ankle-tackling pussycat) they wouldn't know what to do with you if they caught you -- unless you happen to be a giant flying mosquito. Bats, you see, are THE major predator of flying insects.

Just how good are they at getting rid of bugs? Well, your average little brown bats can eat upwards of 600 mosquitoes in an hour and pack away about 3600 of those bloodsucking monsters during an evening's dining. Nor do they limit themselves to eating mosquitoes -- they eat locusts and grasshoppers and nearly anything else that has six legs and wings. So if you're tired of your back yard functioning as a buffet for pesky pests, a little bit of wildscaping will cure the problem!

Although it can be hard to wildscape for most creatures because of the size of their territories, the very size of a bat's territory makes them a much easier creature to attract to your yard. Researchers have found that some bats fly for distances up to 100 miles to get something to eat -- so the bat that visits your yard may not be a close neighbor. They tend to live in areas where there's some form of water (lakes, streams, irrigation ditches, etc.), since insects are also plentiful there. Most roost in caves or abandoned buildings, though some colonies roost under bridges.

Wildscaping for bats is absurdly simple: put a light outdoors and turn it on when it gets dark. Porch lights aren't helpful to flying insect-eaters, since flying close to the house requires a lot of acrobatic maneuvering. The best lights are simple ones set out in the yard, leaving room for the quick-darting bats and swifts to zip in for some fast food on the wing.

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