Bats around the lake

[JayDV]

I never really thought about it before but, where do the bats around the lake go during the winter?

According to this article, bats find a nice cave to sleep the winter away. Are there caves of this sort near the lake? Also, the article discusses the concern over the impending perish of those specific bats in the NY Adirondacks and parts of VT due to unidentified reasons. Are the lake bats in similar jeopardy?

[jrc]

Originally Posted by JayDV

I never really thought about it before but, where do the bats around the lake go during the winter?
...

They're in my attic!

[John A. Birdsall]

Zee ole bat comes to CT for winter an spring. crawls up on the couch and complains all winter an spring. Sometimes I wish she'd find a new home!

[Coolbreeze]

Too funny John, and to add to his post; I thinks most of the older bats from the Lakes region go to Florida until they get word that the ice is gone.

[Newbiesaukee]

but seriously, the threat to both bats and bees is real and with neither a clear cause or solution. Aside from the aesthetic cost, there is a potentially serious economic downside to bee loss and, to a lesser extent, bat loss. Although I am not the dreaded "northern tree-hugger" species, we do need to pay attention to these issues. If we lose both the birds and the bees we are in real trouble

[JayDV]

Originally Posted by Coolbreeze

Too funny John, and to add to his post; I thinks most of the older bats from the Lakes region go to Florida until they get word that the ice is gone.

Or maybe in the vernacular of the younger tv set;

Maybe someone claimed a stake in some caves and went all Buffy on the half a million roof dwellers.

But if bats are seasonal migratory rodents, then possibly the lake's mosquito (and black fly) population won't be rodent controlled this year. Do those black flies still carry forks and knives?

[Dog's Ear]

John, That was the funniest thing I've heard all day. My husband and I got a good laugh over your response.

[Merrymeeting]

I had a good laugh at it too. But I assume that "zee ole bat" is not a forum reader. If so, I fear that is the last we've heard from John!

[Irish mist]

An old-timer up here told me that in the 1950s the sky at dusk around the lake use to be black with bats.....hundreds & hundreds of thousands of them. Now of course you see no such thing....and that's not good. We need them to eat up those bugs

[chipj29]

Originally Posted by Irish mist

An old-timer up here told me that in the 1950s the sky at dusk around the lake use to be black with bats.....hundreds & hundreds of thousands of them. Now of course you see no such thing....and that's not good. We need them to eat up those bugs

That is still the case at my house in Bow. Maybe not thousands, but there are dozens of bats in my yard each night, flying around snacking on the 'skeeters. They fly in and out of the pine trees. Toss a rock up in the air, and watch them come divebombing in!

[Lin]

Originally Posted by Irish mist

An old-timer up here told me that in the 1950s the sky at dusk around the lake use to be black with bats.....hundreds & hundreds of thousands of them. Now of course you see no such thing....and that's not good. We need them to eat up those bugs

I remember when I was young staying at my great Aunt Annie's place in Moultonborough we'd see quite a few bats flying at dusk, now maybe 2 or 3. The white nose bat disease is a real threat to bats. With the loss of the bats there will be a much higher mosquito population. I hate bats but know I have to live with them as part of the ecological balance. Bats are dying by the hundreds and that's scary. Same with the bees as someone mentioned. I don't know of many crops that don't need bees to pollinate them, so a solution to the bee die off needs to be found too or we will all be suffering from high costs of food (or hunger if a solution isn't found and there aren't enough bees to raise crops.)

[COWISLAND NH]

We have plenty of bats living on Cow.....they love getting into our camp. We have built them, and bought them their own"Bat House" but still they love to come in our camp and make a mess. Never seen grown men crawl so fast out of a camp in my whole life..LOL

[Irish mist]

Originally Posted by COWISLAND NH

We have plenty of bats living on Cow.....they love getting into our camp. We have built them, and bought them their own"Bat House" but still they love to come in our camp and make a mess. Never seen grown men crawl so fast out of a camp in my whole life..LOL

Bat-houses are a great idea. Lol, guess those men don't like to be so close to bats

[Grant]

I hung a bat house on a south-facing tree on our property one spring a few years ago. By July, it had become the home for an aggressive hive of wasps, so I sprayed them and took it down. The hope was to get some more bats to live along the shore to chow on mosquitoes. Still hoping to put it back up.

[riverat]

What happens to a Bat(if anything) when it eats a Mosquito that is carrying West Nile Virus?

[Weirs guy]

Originally Posted by JayDV

Do those black flies still carry forks and knives?

Nope, they've changed over to chainsaws and pick axes.

[Island Life]

If you're cruising in your boat at dusk, you should encounter hundreds of bats along the way. I certainly do and it's the only time I really enjoy them. Hate when they get in the camp!!!!

As an aside, I sat at the entrance of a cave in Northern Australia at dusk and watched tens of thousands of bats emerge from the entrance. Brown snakes hung from the trees just outside the entrance and gobbled some of them up as they flew out. And those were the smallies. Their big bats - flying foxes or fruit bats - are about the size of eagles and it's pretty amazing (read: creepy) to see a bunch of those circling overhead.

[Sunbeam lodge]

I built a bat house and will build 2 more this year. We only had a few and now we have close to a dozen. They are great for keeping the bugs down

[John A. Birdsall]

I stay at the cottage in Alton Bay, near echo point, while we never had problems with bats in the cottage, I recall when I was little, (a few moons ago) there were loads of bats in the boat house. Don't recall seeing them or being bothered by them in the day. but when dusk came out the would come.

Now I get them in my house now and then in CT, and other than my daughter screaming about it. Its a pain.

Now as to the two legged bat, she just came by and put her hand out for some green stuff, and it was not the letuce either.

[SIKSUKR]

Originally Posted by riverat

What happens to a Bat(if anything) when it eats a Mosquito that is carrying West Nile Virus?

It's hunger is satisfied.

[Rattlesnake Guy]

When we bought our piece of heaven on the island the real estate listing described it as "gently sloping". The reality is that a ladder would probably tip over on much of it. We are Lucky enough to have several small caves in the rock faces. The bats seem to really enjoy these just as much as in the movies. They also seem to like our closed umbrella on the deck. We open it slowly, look up and have a visitor 90 percent of the time.

[tis]

Originally Posted by Rattlesnake Guy

When we bought our piece of heaven on the island the real estate listing described it as "gently sloping". The reality is that a ladder would probably tip over on much of it.

LOL!

[upthesaukee]

We have a screened porch off our bedroom, which is on the back of the house overlooking our brook, and have a 300W halogen lamp that we turn on at night while we sit on the porch. The light attracts tons of bugs, mainly moths, but sometimes a few bats. We also have the opportunity to see deer and other wildlife in the woods on the far side of the brook.

One evening last summer, we were in the house, and I looked down the open area inside the front of our house, and our two cats were acting very "mousey". Suddenly, our 22 lb yellow tiger cat leaped into the air, trying to grab the mouse, a mouse with wings !!!! It (the bat, not the cat) (with that little rhyme, I feel like Dr. Seuss) flitted along the ceiling area, and while I went in search of my wood stove gloves and a broom, the bat disappeared from sight. We looked and looked, and couldn't see it, but the cats were both staring up at some dark brown paneling in a corner. The bat was almost perfectly camoflauged against the panelling. Now, I am terribly right handed, and the only way I could swing the broom to try to take down the bat was to swing left handed. Taking a deep breath, and putting on my best David Ortiz swing, I caught the bat squarely with my sweep broom, scooped it up before the cats could get to it, and took it outside. The next morning it was gone, so it was either stunned, or became a vital link in another animal's food chain.

Only bat we have ever seen in the house, and not really sure how it got in. I only wish I had video of the cats reaction to the mouse that flies!

[JayDV]

Some of the squeamish in my family emitted eagle-like screeches at the mere mention of bats so we began calling them night birds . Some of the best island camp stories were of the night bird encounters experienced on the island. In the loft at bedtime (mind you there were no electric lights) trying to find the pesky thing with a flashlight in order to swat with the broom. Or inside the peak of the outhouse, tell me that didn't speed matters up a bit. Catch one in long hair? And of course the eave next to the slamming porch door? SLAM flutter flutter swoosh.

I wish I could hear the bats' stories of the people they scared. I could picture Belfry the bat talking about his adventures with Oh_my the human dummy.

[Weirs guy]

We still have plenty at the Weirs, as least as many as when I was a kid. Long will live the tale on my street of the night the bat in the house met the drunken Weirs Guy. My cat actually caught one last summer on the back lawn and killed it. There everywhere!

[CanisLupusArctos]

If you have a shingled house with a 1-2 inch space under some of the shingles (which usually happens in any shingled house) the bats will crawl right up in there and sleep all day. At dusk we'll see them drop out of the shingles and start fluttering about. When we turn the porch lights on, the bugs all gather in the light beams and the bats fly back and forth through the bug-gathering, having themselves an insect massacre. Usually by late July we don't have any more mosquitoes near the house (most mosquitoes usually only fly a few hundred feet from where they hatch.)

I remember when I was a kid, we caught a bat (I think it got in the house somehow.) Dad had it trapped in a transparent container so we could look at it. Up close you could definitely tell it was a mammal, furry and kind of like a mouse. To think, they actually give birth to live young (pups) and nurse them with mother's milk.

According to this internet site, they are the only mammals that can fly (flying squirrels don't count because they don't have the ability to gain altitude - only glide.)

http://icwdm.org/handbook/mammals/bats.asp

[Island Life]

Originally Posted by JayDV

I wish I could hear the bats' stories of the people they scared. I could picture Belfry the bat talking about his adventures with Oh_my the human dummy.

I was reading in bed to my kids one night when a bat swooped in on us. We all jumped out of bed and ran to a nearby screen-door to get out. We didn't know it, but the door was latched and we stood there for many seconds, struggling against the netting to get out. An animated version of this would have our bodies squish through the screen and come out the other side. When we finally liberated ourselves we ran to a neighboring house - my kids were completely naked but young enough not to care. If bats can laugh, this little guy probably had a good chuckle over that.

Since then I keep a short fishing net in the house to snag any flying friends. We have no electricity, so it will be a real challenge if I need to do it.

[SIKSUKR]

Islandlife is right on.Don't try to swat bats with a broom if they are in your house.The fastest and safest way for both you and the bat is to use what most people who fish have at their lakehouse already.A fishing net.I have one with a long extension handle I added.They work great and you can let the little guy go and do his job outside.

[MJM]

I've always heard that a good trick is to simply toss an open towel (not bunched up - hold it at the corners and try to fling it flat) into the air when the bat is flying around. They almost always fly into it for cover, and it falls to the floor, covering the bat. You can then scoop up the towel and throw it outside.

Haven't done it personally, but have heard it from a few different sources.

We love being "dive-bombed" by the bats while boating in Wolfeboro at/just past dusk! The kids' screaming is a Summer joy!

[ITD]

We had a bat in our cellar this fall, came in on an umbrella we had just brought in. We just closed all the doors to keep him out of the main part of the house and opened the door to the outside. Took a few minutes but he wanted to be out as badly as we wanted him out. At night during the summer we have plenty of bats flying around, during the day they sleep under our 2nd floor deck, usually 3 or 4 at a time. Kids love to see them, they seem not mind us, although we keep our distance.

[dan]

Originally Posted by MJM

I've always heard that a good trick is to simply toss an open towel (not bunched up - hold it at the corners and try to fling it flat) into the air when the bat is flying around. They almost always fly into it for cover, and it falls to the floor, covering the bat. You can then scoop up the towel and throw it outside.

Haven't done it personally, but have heard it from a few different sources.

We love being "dive-bombed" by the bats while boating in Wolfeboro at/just past dusk! The kids' screaming is a Summer joy!

I knocked one down in a neighbor's house that way last year. I waded up a dish towel and threw it. I thought I made a great throw and now I find out the bat hit the towel. Son of a gun, It was the bat that had the good aim.

[chipj29]

The warm weather had the bats flying around last night, and they sure were making a racket. They must be hungry, with no bugs around.

[ApS]

Originally Posted by Lin

"...The white nose bat disease is a real threat to bats. With the loss of the bats there will be a much higher mosquito population..."

1) The Nature Conservancy owns an easement to Mascot Lead Mine near Gorham, NH, according to a recent mailing. Quote:

"...[Mascot Lead Mine is] a winter home (hibernacula) for about 1500 bats of five species...the mine is gated to protect the bats...It's home to the small-footed myotis, the Eastern pipistrelle, little brown bat, and the big brown bat..."

(I thought all bats were "big")

Most NH bats go out of state for the winter: a recent inventory of the Mascot Lead Mine cave (now owned by NHF&G) showed some species are down in numbers. That disease (white nose disease) is prevelant in the winter caves of New York state, Massachusetts and Vermont.

2) My shoebox-sized bat house unexpectedly "emptied out" early one September afternoon. I don't know what caused the fire drill, but seemingly hundreds poured out and milled in the woods. One glanced off my head—a first for me, and maybe for it. The bat house doesn't get full sun, so it wasn't the heat.

3) As for capturing bats inside, none has beaten my dad's midnight capture: When told of a bat fluttering around inside, he sleepily rolled over, raised up a shoe, and the bat flew directly into it!

A lot easier catch-and-release than having to pick a bat out of a landing net, I'll tell you!

(And yes, close-up, they do look like mice—toothy mice).

[ghfromaltonbay]

One summer night a group of us were sitting outside our neighbor's camp @ Sandy Point under a large tree and, as usual, the bats were swooping down around the water's edge. A few of the bats came directly overhead when suddenly a large white flash startled us. An owl had been sitting in the tree directly over us, and when a bat came too close he swooped down and got his dinner. The owl was within 2 feet of our neighbor's head when he made the catch. We never heard him coming, but boy did we all jump!