Halloween is time to give bats a second look

[depakid]

The western long-eared bat -- one takes flight near Fort Rock, southeast of Bend -- is found all over North America but mostly in the Northwest. They like dry forests and subalpine spots, especially rock outcroppings, and eat moths, beetles, flies and net-winged insects.
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There are those who celebrate bats every day of the year -- their amazing echolocation abilities that let them find their way about; their prodigious abilities to devour insects; their being the only mammal that can fly.

You're not one of those people? If ever there's a time to give bats a second look, that would be now, just to get beyond the nonsense Halloween stereotype of vampires. Even though bats like dark places, they are sociable.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/10/halloween_bats.html


The hoary bat ranges widely across Oregon where good tree roosts and water are available; this one was photographed near Bend. Unlike many species that like to tuck themselves into a rock crevice or under tree bark for protection and insulation, the hoary bat has a thick coat of fur that allows it to stay out in the open. By day they will often roost in fir trees and act like a pine cone. Their chief food is moths.

[CrispyQ]

1. I love bats!

What fantastic creatures!

[BrklynLiberal]

2. We have bats here in the summer. We love them. They eat mosquitoes.

Some of us put up "bat houses" to give them shelter.
We can get them in Lowes.



The Bats under the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin Texas are a huge tourist attraction.

Every summer night, hundreds of people gather to see the world's largest urban bat colony emerge from under the Congress Avenue Bridge. These 1.5 million bats are fun to watch, but they're also making our world a better place to live.

When engineers reconstructed downtown Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980 they had no idea that new crevices beneath the bridge would make an ideal bat roost. Although bats had lived there for years, it was headline news when they suddenly began moving in by the thousands. Reacting in fear and ignorance, many people petitioned to have the bat colony eradicated.

As the city came to appreciate its bats, the population under the Congress Avenue Bridge grew to be the largest urban bat colony in North America. With up to 1.5 million bats spiraling into the summer skies, Austin now has one of the most unusual and fascinating tourist attractions anywhere.

The Austin American-Statesman created the Statesman Bat Observation Center adjacent to the Congress Bridge, giving visitors a dedicated area to view the nightly emergence. It is estimated that more than 100,000 people visit the bridge to witness the bat flight, generating ten million dollars in tourism revenue annually.

more info and pictures....
http://www.batcon.org/home/index.asp?idPage=122

More info about Bat Watching in Austin.
http://www.austincityguide.com/content/congress-bridge-bats-austin.asp

[Terry in Austin]

5. Bats rule!

...all 1.5 million of 'em. This being Austin, the count is occasionally verified by relaxed-looking dudes draped on the bridge railing.

:hippie:

[BrklynLiberal]

6. The bats are among the many, many reasons I would love to visit Austin.

[katandmoon]

3. Bats are so cool, and they need our help...

Bat World Sanctuary

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Oh my..the pic of the baby bat sucking on the pacifier is amazing..

[stuntcat]

7. I'm big on Bats :D

Every night in Spring and Summer we have lots of them flying around our back yard.

We've put up three bat houses, one expensive three-chamber house and two smaller ones. I'm not sure how much they're being used.. I know the bachelor bats must have stayed in them before!
We've always had so many here, for years. If we turn off the lights in the tv room and stand near the windows they fly right by us.
I'm worried about bats.. well I feel like ALL the animals are living pretty much at our mercy from now on.

This first bat house is mounted on an attractive tree stump my neighbors decided to leave between our back yards. I painted that bat on it :)
The second picture is two houses, a smaller one is behind the bigger one. The picture is mostly of my vegetable bed though.

[depakid]

8. Bat houses are really nice-

in the NorthWest, they almost always get do their thing.

As in eat bugs- biting ones.

It's really cool watching and grasping how it works.