Sharon Lovejoy

BAT GARDENING

Sharon Lovejoy

They harvest their dinners

From buggy night skies,

Use echolocation

As well as their eyes

What are they? BATS, the world's champion night fliers and bug catchers. You can plan and plant a garden that will welcome bats into your life. Your bat garden can be as small as a window box or as big as your whole backyard. You don't need lots of fancy tools or equipment, but what you do need is a bat attitude.

What bats need:

* A garden that provides shelter from sun, rain and predators
* Water
* Food
* Pesticide and herbicide free environment

What you need to plan and plant a bat garden:

* Ask a grown up to take you to a nursery to search for night blooming plants, evergreen shrubs, vines and trees. If you can't go to a nursery, you can order seeds and plants from a catalogue.

* Draw a simple plan showing where you are going to plant your bat garden. Put big X's to indicate where you will be planting flowers, vines, trees and shrubs. The plan will help you decide how many different things you will be buying and planting.

* Choose a sunny spot, pot or window box, and make sure the soil is free of weeds.

* Plant lots of night blooming flowers such as phlox, night-scented stock, nicotiana, citrus, jasmine, heliotrope, moon flower vines, four o'clock, evening primrose, salvias, silene, dames rocket, honeysuckle and bouncing bet. Although the bats won't feed on the night blooming flowers, they WILL feed on the moths and insects who are in your garden feasting on plant nectar.

* Plant evergreen vines, trees and shrubs. By planting evergreens you provide bats with green hide-outs. The green hide-outs also shelter insects which in turn feed the bats.

* Don't forget to water your plants! Stick a finger in the soil, and if it is dry, you can give your plants a long, slow drink that will sink deeply into the soil. Quick squirts won't work; roots need to soak up the water.

* Rock walls and rock piles are a haven for tiny bat visitors. Build a bat fort by gathering rocks and stacking them loosely in piles or short walls. (Rocks should be at least 10" to 12" wide.) Make sure you leave spaces between the rocks so that your resident bats can easily enter and exit.

* Bats often take cover inside the slats of exterior shutters. Nail some old shutters against an east or southeast facing fence, barn, garage or outbuilding. Hang the shutters 10' to 15' above the ground (out of reach of hungry cats) with an unobstructed approach so that bats are able to swoop in for a landing.

* Stop raking! Gardens don't need to be as neat as your living room floor. Let the leaf litter build up in flower beds. A blanket of leaf litter is a great habitat for insects and insects are bat snacks.

* Build a bat pool. Just like you, bats need to drink. You can create a pond by sinking half barrels, galvanized or plastic troughs, plastic pond liners or even old bathtubs into the ground. The bigger you can make your bat pool, the better. To hide the edge of your pond, you may want to border it with flat rocks and sweet smelling night blooming plants. Remember to place your pond in an unobstructed open area so that bats can easily cruise in (and out) for a drink.

* Find a corner of your yard, porch or patio, and trade a yellow "bug light" for a regular white, 60 watt reading bulb. Moths and other insects that are attracted to light will make this their evening meeting spot, and the bats will dive in for dinner.

Spend some night time outside in your bat garden. Don't worry about the bats bumping into you or getting caught in your hair. Bats see better in the dark than you do. Hunting bats give off a series of high pitched chirps (these chirps are so high we can't hear most of them) that bounce off moths and insects flying in front of them. The chirps echo back to the bats big ears and help them locate their prey.

Have you ever played hide-and-seek at night? When you find your friends by listening to them whispering or crunching twigs, YOU are using echolocation.