Bats
Bat boxes differ from bird nest-boxes in typical design, with the larger opening on the underside of the box, and are more often referred to as roost boxes, although in regards to the rearing of young, they serve the same purpose. Threatened bat species can be locally supported with the provision of appropriately placed bat-boxes. Bats are a means of natural mosquito and insect control in some parts of the world. A single bat can eat 500 to 1,000 mosquitoes per night as well as other insect pests. Directions for making the open bottom bat houses for small and large colonies, as well as locations to purchase them are available on the internet. Bat houses are an ecologically friendly way of controlling mosquitoes as pesticides mostly kill the mosquitoes' predators rather than mosquitoes. Australian Bat Box projects have been running for over 12 years in particular at the Organ Pipes National Park. Currently there are 42 roost boxes using the "Stebbings Design" which have peaked at 280 bats roosting in them. The biggest problem with roosting boxes of any kind is the ongoing maintenance; problems include boxes falling down, wood deteriorating and pest such as ants, the occasional rat, possums and spiders.
Read more about this topic: Nest Box
Famous quotes containing the word bats:
“While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
“A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall....”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)