The video shows the Bibins mounting their bat houses on 20-foot poles in their orchard, which is bordered by woodlands, a wetland and a number of creeks and ponds. And bat watching has become a favorite activity for both parents and children, who put out the folding chairs at night and enjoy the show. They don't have to swat mosquitoes, which are slurped up by the bats. Cal Kosky, a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, has helped many homeowners remove bats from their attics and transfer them to bat houses on an outside wall of the house or on a high pole in the yard. Mr. Kosky simply tapes a piece of plastic or netting over the top of the bat hole, on the outside of the house.
Bats are able to fly out, because the sheet is open at the bottom, but they are blocked upon return.
A bat house placed strategically close to the old hole provides them with a new home. When people, who are often initially panicked by bats in their homes, realize how many insects are being eaten nightly by this organic swat team, they usually want the bats to stick around. The bat house provides vertical roosting chambers set three- quarters of an inch apart, a peaked roof to keep out rain, and a grooved panel at the bottom, to give bats a leg up, so to speak, when coming in for a landing. Bat houses should be painted different colors depending upon climate black or dark shades for cool weather, light shades for hot weather and mounted on high metal poles or a building near a water source, like a stream or pond. Building bat houses in your community is one way to do something practical for the environment, while getting to know your neighbors and beginning to discuss other problems, like storm runoff or a polluted stream.