How to make a house for bats

 

Bats are among the only mammals capable of active flight. They sleep during the day and hunt insects at night. During the summer, they stay in places with plenty of food. They are looking for some shelter at dawn. Since there are few natural shelters today, we can make a wooden shed for bats, in which they will be replaced by a chubby tree.

There are two main types of shelters. Smaller species of bats look for cracks, fissures in the wood or hide under the bark. In the slits, they are hung downside down with their bellies against the wall. Larger species tend to look for the spacious cavities of turbulent trees, where they hang from the ceiling downside down, hung only by the legs.

 

 

 

I tried to make a universal booth, a combination of slotted and chambered. The dimensions are only indicative, just as the wood chips stand out. The internal space is 200 x 250 x 50 mm. To do this, depending on the thickness of the wood, two sidewalls, so that we get an inlet opening 50 mm high. Both the boards and the sides are chamfered to finally create a sloping roof.

 

 

We cut the boards to the required dimensions.

 

 

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To make it clear that it is a bat booth and not a mailbox, we will cut out the silhouette of the bat. We draw half of the silhouette on a sheet of paper, fold it, cut it out and draw it on wooden boards.

 

 

 

We cut the redrawed outline roughly with a saw and grind it with a file.

 

 

 

Create grooves on the inside of the back wall so that bats can climb on them. I made the grooves slightly at an angle so that they could be caught better.

 

 

 

From the back wall we create handles for hanging. It is best to use a plunge cutter and embed them in wood.

 

 

 

From the inside of the front wall we add a partition, which narrows the inlet opening from 50 mm to 25 mm. The upper side of the partition is sloping to prevent guano (manure) from accumulating on it.

 

 

 

From the inside of the roof, we drill shallow holes at an angle, on which bats can hang from the ceiling.

 

 

 

We glue all the parts together and then screw them together.

 

 

 

We drill ventilation holes in the lower part of the sides. If the booth is too hot, then the bats descend to the lower part.

 

 

 

We treat the wood from the outside. I used walnut peeling and flaxseed oil as a patina.

 

 

 

I laser engraved another bat on the front wall.

 

 

 

We will hang the booth ideally on the west side a few meters above the ground. Bats have their own hunting ground, in which they move between individual shelters. Therefore, it may take longer for them to discover the booth and start using it.