We enjoy watching the bats each night, and have gotten rather familiar with their routine. They first start appearing at our feeders around 6:30 p.m., with a period of pretty great activity between 7 and 8, but only at one feeder -- the one below the tree, pictured below -- at that time.
if you enlarge this photo (click it to enlarge) you will be able to see the bat's tongue, a thin red line from his mouth to the flower! Very cool!!!
Not until 10 or so do they start hitting the two feeders by our back door, and the activity level from that point on is pretty high. We've seen up to 7 at one time, but counting them is really difficult because of how fast they are, and because we only watch one feeder at a time.
three at once...
two at a time...note the detail in the wing on the lower bat
With the number and duration of their evening, the bats who visit us manage to drain the three feeders by morning, thus drinking more in a night than the hummingbirds and other birds do in a day. We now "top off" the feeders in the evening for the bats, if the hummingbirds have made a significant dent in the water level, and of course then we refill them in the morning for the birds. We go through quite a bit of sugar this way, making sugar water twice daily for three feeders!
on approach...
holding on for a nice, long drink....
We never tire of watching the bats, our own personal nature show! This beats Discovery Channel any day, I think!
Great photos!
ReplyDeleteThose are amazing photos!
ReplyDeleteHowever, they give me the creeps!
JP came to see and he wishes we had bats at our hummingbird feeders. :groaner: He thinks it is "awesome"!!! :)
Awesome photos! Can't wait to see them in person in November.
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Amazing photos! I'd be willing to put up a feeder here for the bats we have but suspect it wouldn't be enough to get them away from the pond etc. tempted tho'.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea! We have lots of cute visitors too. I am putting a feeder on my list for our trip back to FL in September :)
ReplyDeleteI love it! What kind of bats are they? Fruit bats? That's my guess, but we'll be studying bats this year. I would guess that insecting eating bats wouldn't be tempted by sugar water. Am I wrong.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very cool set up and my kids are jealous. We like bats.
Mrs. Wookie & Mrs Welch -- I hope you find a way to tempt the bats you have; maybe build a bat box?
ReplyDeleteGfG, yes, we think these are a variety of fruit bat. I read that bats are the #1 polenator of figs, which is a top crop in the valley where we live, so we are fairly certain these are that variety. We've noticed they do not eat insects, and, no, I don't think insect eating ones would like the sugar water at all; these devour it.
I hope the fig crop doesn't suffer this year, LOL!
Glad you all enjoyed it!
Great photos! My kids would LOVE this! How fun.
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