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Old October 6, 2018   #16
AlittleSalt
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As Worth has already written - there are a lot of bats in Texas - especially fruit bats. Bats like areas where there is water nearby. A tank, lake, creek, river etc. Those places draw in insects like mosquitos. San Antonio, Texas is another place where the bat population brings in tourists just to see them.

I have my experiences with bats and they have all been good. Now, I'm interested in how they fare in Newfoundland, Canada. It gets cold here in Texas too. A night of 10F or -12C happens here, and we still have bats. It could be that yours has become used to the weather there?
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Old October 7, 2018   #17
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Your bat friend may freeze to death without a colony to help warm him in the cold. Plus, bats are social animals.
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Old October 7, 2018   #18
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Salt, there are at least two species of bats that are native to Newfoundland, so they must be adapted to winter over. We know they are common in other parts of the island that are further north, so the mystery is not their winter survival, only why they aren't commonly found here in the more southeastern part.
I don't think there is anything like a cave around here, where a bat colony would be snug for the winter, and that is the only reason that makes sense to me, why we don't have them.
OTOH I agree, the chances of one little bat on it's own are not great! The southeast eave of my house is probably the more sheltered place available to spend the winter, but it's going to be cold enough there in January, for sure.
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Old October 7, 2018   #19
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Many bats from Canada will fly south for the winter and others hibernate in places like caves, rock piles, mines or old buildings.
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Old October 7, 2018   #20
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I saw a show where a woman's whole attic was infested with bats and the droppings were probably over a foot deep in the attic.
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Old October 7, 2018   #21
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Here's an interesting local (to you) article: http://theindependent.ca/2015/08/08/...s-in-my-attic/ There are lots of bats in Norway, so they should have no trouble surviving in your climate. They just have to find any frost-free shelter to hibernate in - not necessarily a cave.


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Old October 7, 2018   #22
swellcat
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Bat guano is one of the touted ingredients in Texas Tomato Food. Seems to me, having the poo makers onsite would be a gift from the gods for tomato growers.
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Old October 7, 2018   #23
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Thanks for that article, Steve. This is on the Avalon in fact not so far from us in Conception Bay at all. I wondered if there were bats on the Southern Shore, apparently there are.

This may be not quite the right time for the lost bat to make a seasonal move, but maybe as November draws near this little bat will fly off to wherever they normally go for the winter.
Maybe back next year with friends?
Gotta say there are a LOT of moths in this area. Some years there are so many moths, the whole side of the building is just covered in em (I'm sure I have a pic somewhere from a few years ago it was ridiculous!) Pretty sure the bat is finding it a decent place to feed, so if it turns out to be normal for bats to wander around and rejoin their crew, it may well get the mommies in on the action. Fine by me (but I'd rather build a box than have them in the attic).
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Old October 7, 2018   #24
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They don't necessarily need caves. There aren't any caves where I live & we have bats. Not sure what they do in winter, but they survive somehow.



Congrats on the bat.
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Old October 7, 2018   #25
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-nose_syndrome

This might be some issues ,bat fert,been around long time,in the archives.
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Old October 8, 2018   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b View Post
They don't necessarily need caves. There aren't any caves where I live & we have bats. Not sure what they do in winter, but they survive somehow.



Congrats on the bat.
It's the same way in our local area. There are no caves that I know of, and I've done a lot of exploring starting back in 1980. Before that, I was a city boy.

I would also like to say, congrats on the bat.
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Old October 8, 2018   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bower View Post
"scary though when they zip bye"
The first time I saw bats, we were living in Colombia and had a vacation in Santa Marta on the coast. There were lights in the pool so we could swim at night and that was fun, but... turned out bats were divebombing the pool to skim insects off the surface at night. So my first encounter with a bat was not seeing it but getting clipped by something as I got out of the water. And then we just watched in amazement... they were all over it. Night swims.. not so interesting.
Been there plenty times,they use a lot of guano in their local cannabis celebrity strain Santa Marta Gold ,air ,sun dried.Wars have been fought over bat crap.I use a lot of concentrate for maters and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano
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Old October 8, 2018   #28
bower
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Tx for bats congrats.
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Old October 8, 2018   #29
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Bats do not always hibernate in caves, they just need a protected place to huddle together. They can use dead trees, rock piles, abandoned houses or barns or many other places that you might not think of. In colder areas they may migrate south to a warmer location for the winter but they will still hibernate in the same type of places once they get there.
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Old October 9, 2018   #30
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I was thinking about the cave issue today and you may not think that you have caves in your area because you are thinking about big caves like in TX but a pile of a few boulders can have spaces between them that make protected little caves for bats to hibernate in. During the summer they sometimes roost under loose tree bark. They don't need a big space to consider it a good place to spend the winter. It doesn't have to be a real cave like we could walk into although they would like that too.
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