Bats in the Belfrey

A few weeks back, my brother in law came into the house holding a little stick - with a bat on it. I looked at the stick, then looked up at him and he just said "It's a dead baby bat".

It was only about 6cm long from nose to tail and must have fallen out of the roost or off it's mommy while she was flying. My niece (who's a teacher) decided she wanted to put it in epoxy for her class.

This house is very attractive to wildlife and had to be bird proofed a few years back. The eaves had to be closed off with facia boards after the breeding season once the nests had been discarded by the parents.

It's funny how nature has a way of getting around your best efforts at exclusion.

You see the bird proofing worked beautifully at excluding the Redwing Starlings (who had become very territorial and aggressive), but the facia boards also then made the perfect little enclosures along the roof - essentially there is now a bat box that spans the length of the house on both sides.

So how do you tell if there are bats in your roof?
Squeaking and scratching are good first indicators and then if you look at where the squeaking is coming from, you will probably see guano and urine marks where the entrance to the roost is.

I don't think that my brother in law is going to like the mess that they are making up there. The guano and urine is acidic and will have a detrimental effect on the wood in the long run.

This particular bat, the Cape Serotine Bat is classified as a "least concern" species according to the Red Data List and their main threat happens to be wind turbines but they are afforded protection under the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act of 2004.

Fully grown they are about 8 to 9cm from nose to tail tip with a wing span of about 25cm. They are mostly crepuscular (active dawn and dusk) and almost exclusively insectivorous. The roosts can house up to 20 bats that live communally.

These photos I took in 2006 after we caught one in a capture session at Blaawberg Conservation Area. They are exceptionally good at evading capture nets so we were only able to catch this one. Yes, it is in a drinking glass - this was the best way to photograph it. After verifying the species and taking a few photos, it was released safely back into the nature reserve.

You should never handle live bats without wearing good quality gloves (leather biking gloves work really well) as bats have always been vectors of some really nasty diseases. Of course people became more aware of this recently with the Covid pandemic, however bats are well known for spreading rabies and even the bubonic plague. They do however also provide an important ecological role in the ecosystem, so in my mind, if you can live with them living with you, then everyone wins.

_{Sources:
Fernkloof Nature Reserve
Endangered Wildlife Trust
Ecosolutions}