The air is getting crisper, leaves are finally changing colors, and pumpkin spice lattes have been at Starbucks for over a month now. It is definitely fall. While we enjoy harvest festivals and simultaneously lament the end of warm days, most animals are readying themselves for winter. For bats, fall is a migration period. Most bats in Eastern North America have a summer roosting habitat separate from their winter hibernacula. Many bat species have adapted to urban living , trading the nooks and crannies of old trees for a snug crack in a wall or under the eave of a roof.
This month, students at St. Louis University (SLU) found a female evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis) clinging to the brick wall of the student center. This isn’t the first bat sighting on campus – the campus church literally has bats in the belfry. This particular bat was likely nesting in a building nearby and was on her way to her winter hibernacula. Once we picked her up (safely! With gloves and prior rabies vaccination!), we noticed that she was injured, and sent her to a bat rehab in Columbia, Missouri. She’s now getting plump for winter on meal worms and will be released when she’s healthy.
What can you do if you have a bat in your home or campus? Firstly, don’t touch it. Besides the risk of disease, it could be injured and stress increases injury to both you and the bat. If it’s in a public place, find a way to cover it and keep it safe from disturbance. Call your local animal control or wild animal rescue and rehab.
To make your yard or campus more bat friendly, leave trees that have popped bark or large crevices for roosting – the uglier the better! You can put up bat houses like this one that students at SLU made. Most bats in North America are insectivorous, so avoid pesticides and plant native plants that support native insects. Bat Conservation International has great resources on bats: http://www.batcon.org/.
Do you have a photo or video of an urban species doing something unusual? What about a rare plant or animal that you were surprised to find in a city? If so, let Lindsay know or Tweet at us and you could be featured as a future observation of the week!
- Urban Observation of the Week: University Bat - November 6, 2019
Very cool. Keep us posted on her recovery. Any photo’s of what her setup looks like? I’m curious as to how you setup housing to care for her as she recovers.
Hi Kevin, I sent the bat to Dr. Sybill Amelon with the US Forest Service / University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. I’m not sure of her set up, but she is pretty open to talk about it. As of today, the bat is still recovering on antibiotics and may stay the winter in captivity and be released in the spring. Since it’s late in the season, it’s getting late to release her to migrate to her overwintering cave, as it might be too cold to make the trip.