A crummy house on a pole won't work either. Choose a good house, and make sure you have good placement. As a Research Associate, you will receive the latest, revised edition of The Bat House Builder's Handbook and our biannual newsletter, The Bat House Researcher , both of which advise on house design, painting, placement, and maintenance. You will also have opportunities to exchange information and gain helpful advice from Mark and Selena and fellow project participants. Ready-built wooden and plastic houses are available, or you can obtain bat house plans by ordering The Bat House Builder's Handbook .
Stars represent sites with one or more houses occupied by bats.
Mexican free-tailed bats return at dawn to two of Bill Holloway's bat houses in Louisiana. As natural roost sites are lost through habitat destruction and human disturbance, bats are increasingly dependent upon man-made structures. The houses had been installed the previous year and attracted about 50 bats within four months. Project Coordinator Mark Kiser installs data loggers inside bat house roosting chambers to measure differences in temperature between wooden and plastic nursery houses. Thanks to this convenient test site at the Austin, Texas, home of Research Associate John Scanlan, we can compare the effect of design, material, or exterior color on temperature.