Mosquito Treatment

"has anyone but me ever batted bats?"

The only bat that I've ever seen up close was one that was in my basement when I was like 10 or so... my dad was out of town, and my mother called her brother to come over and get it. He hit it w/ a tennis racket, stunned it, put it in a brown paper bag, and supposedly took it 'out to the fields' wherever that may be, to let it go...

So no, I've never batted bats, but I've seen a bat get racketed!
 
Bats are the most common and populous animal on the earth. Even though we don't see them most of the time (because of their nocturnal nature), they're out there and will probably find a bat house before too long if you place one in your yard -- you won't have to go looking for them. The way bat houses are constructed makes it pretty hard for most birds to get in there.

Here's a link to one possible design of a bat house.

http://www.southernregion.fs.fed.us/boone/batdraw.htm

A couple years ago I visited Carlsbad Caverns just before Labor Day and waited for the evening bat flight. It was awesome to watch a seemingly endless cloud of bats come streaming from the caverns to start their nightly hunt.
 
They are pretty awesome animals when you get right down to it. I've never seen a big flight out of a cave, but we run into them in the shallow underground mines pretty frequently. on the farms as a kid, we would watch them fly around in the barns at night. If you ever want to see on up close, just launch a ping pong ball into the air at night, and watch it fall. bats will home in on it and follow it down most of the time. as with prety much any small object that sounds like a bug to their sonar.
dave
 
yipes! I saw one of them up close just 2 weeks ago. We went to the vacation house in PA, were settling down at about 9 or so.... all of a sudden there's one flying around the house. I have no idea how it got in and the weirdest thing was while it was flying, no one even heard his wings flapping. And he had an amazing amount of control over his flight.... I always thought they were skittish fliers. Anyway, we opened up a few windows and doors and sorta herded him out of the house....
 
Oh dang you mean it doesn't work darn it, I was going to try it also a friend sent it to me oh well.

As for the bats when I lived in El Paso, the bats used to fly over our house from Carlsbad Caverns and they used to dive bomb the pool for the insects.

We used to go to Carlsbad Caverns also it is a pretty cool place to visit.
 
Down in Austin there is a tourist spot for watching bat flights. Bats from Mexico spend their summer under the bridges in Austin and come pouring out at sunset. An awesome site.
 
WOW!! Thanks everyone, they sound like very interesting animals!!
 
BTW, you might want to consider "flicking" mosquitos instead of smashing them.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-08062004-343904.html

And Tara, if you were in our neighborhood and "swatted" your kid, we wouldn't turn you in, we'd prolly applaud. Not enough people spank/swat their kids anymore, so kids just aren't scared of their parents like they used to be. Not a good thing.
 
Are you sure citronella doesn't work? 'Cause we live next to a swamp... aka, mosquitoville so we light the citronella candles when we're out. The mosquitos usually assault us, but don't when the candles are out...

Another tip to avoid mosquitos... don't where perfume.
 
On a side note...
It should be pointed out the females are the ones that are the bloodsuckers - not the males.... :D

mos-male-bar.gif
 
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