Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

In the summer, in my rural home, ladies would cover their heads, when bats swoop to catch the mosquitoes that the carbon dioxide of your body attracts.

I have an old home, the wood that bats are attracted to, like old barns, the wood is 100+ years old.

When I replaced windows, I had to go around and manually gather the bats and put them out before the new window. That was 2008. I bought a bat hotel for them. Never saw one since. One year, all our #bats disappeared.

https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/white-nose-syndrome-killed-over-90-three-north-american-bat-species

Snowshadow,
@Snowshadow@mastodon.social avatar

@Rasta
When I opened the link I first read, "White noise killed...." 🤦

That is an awful disease. Bats are very important part of the ecosystem...and to lose so many is very concerning.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@Snowshadow I know, plus, they are super cute. Unlike bushy squirrels, NNM (No Names Mentioned) they are just a rat with a bushy tail, they will destroy your home if they get in, but they look cute, that's why we don't set rat traps for them LOL But Bats. They are like Spiders they harm nothing, they do good, and they are really cute. I miss them

Snowshadow,
@Snowshadow@mastodon.social avatar

@Rasta I think they are cute. And they are smart and very useful because they eat insects....and other things.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@Snowshadow Mostly mosquitoes. I'm on the ocean. There's half an acre of sea marsh out in front. It's like swampland with the smell of the sea, and we have the biggest mosquitos. You think the moon can block the sun, I was photographing sunrise (I open a window and they all come in) that one blocked the sun on the lens. I want bats, or a 2 acre fogger

Snowshadow,
@Snowshadow@mastodon.social avatar

@Rasta yes, most bats here eat mosquitoes, in other areas they eat fruit and other things. There is one bat species that has a symbiotic relationship with a particular flower of a cactus.
They are interesting little creatures.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@Snowshadow Last time I saw them, was in limestone caves in Marianna Florida
They tell people not to disturb them, because they are venerable too.

gparenti,
@gparenti@mstdn.social avatar

@Rasta That's interesting. We used to see bats sleeping behind the large wooden shutter doors on our farmhouse (we close them summer mornings to keep the house cooler). We replaced them a few years ago, but never made the connection between the bats and the old wood. They do still hang around the upstairs porch which has ancient doors and beams.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@gparenti I only found out, because like everything else I learned since I retired, I had to know everything about it once I learned. I asked what made the simple bat house the bat-guy builds, different from a wooden bird house. He collects his supply wood from barns being torn down, the older the better. There's years of bat houses in just one beam

gparenti,
@gparenti@mstdn.social avatar

@Rasta I'm going to have to check our barn now. Our helper built all kinds of shelving with the old shutters and doors. Maybe they found new digs. 😊

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@gparenti The house I had to put them out of, every time I pulled a window, has an A frame roof (very steep to shingle) and they got right up in th V peek and were hard to spot. In those old roofs, there's balls of dust bigger than bats. But they become active at dark. You can pick them up at noon and probably not wake them much

johnefrancis,
@johnefrancis@mastodon.social avatar

@Rasta I have a bat house and it's been used pretty regularly the past 5 years. It took a few years from them to move out of the eaves in the bat house. It's impossible to see them in the bat house, can sometimes catch them leaving in the evening, and they leave turds.

They should be back for the summer soon.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@johnefrancis I hope that WNS doesn't hit there. One year, they were everywhere, and the bathouse has never had a bat. We lost all our bats

Susan60,
@Susan60@aus.social avatar

@Rasta @johnefrancis
So sad, but awfully worrying too.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@Susan60 Very sad. My wife isn't as fond of them because they flutter above her head, but I'm fascinated and concerned about them.

Susan60,
@Susan60@aus.social avatar

@Rasta

They’re interesting to see & hear when they fly overhead. But having so many disappear raises serious questions about the environment.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@Susan60 In this case, not specifically environmental related, but likely spreading globally due to climate change. It's like Bird Flu. Once it hits, every bat gets it. It smothers them, wakes them early, they die. I've read up on it before. Any bats we had, died in one year from the virus, and they never recovered

Susan60,
@Susan60@aus.social avatar

@Rasta
Which then has a rippling effect on the environment. No doubt the insect populations have increased.

Rasta,
@Rasta@mstdn.ca avatar

@Susan60 Not the good ones

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