This page last updated 04/19/2004
We gathered a group at the Earthday festival that included two faculty members (myself and Dr. Chris Kodani) as well as a number of different students. The wood was donated (I'm not sure of the company name, but once I have it I'll include it here). The wood was cut for us before the festival, so we were able assemble the eight bat houses in a little over 2 hours!
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Here's some of the initial work to figure out how large a piece of mesh you need to line the inside of the house. The mesh it there so that the houses have a nice surface for the bats to cling to, since the plywood we used would not be rough enough by itself. |
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Then you have to cut the mesh to make it fit. |
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Next you staple the mesh to the inside pieces so that it won't move. |
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Then you hammer the houses together (I do not appear to have a picture showing that). Once the houses are assembled, you caulk up the seams to keep water out and to help them maintain the warm temperatures that the bats like. The large vent at the front (you can see it as a black line below the caulking gun) is there to help set up a temperature gradient that the bats will like. |
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After a couple of hours of hard work, our intrepid researchers took a well-deserved break. |
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Here's a picture showing some of us with the finished bat houses. Thanks to everyone who helped out (including the people who aren't in this picture - everyone deserves a big hand!). The next stage is to paint them and get them ready for hanging. Stay tuned for more info! |
