Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Bat Box

We have a lot of mosquitoes in our yard and so we decided to get a bat box. The idea is that the bat box will attract bats, which will eat the mosquitoes. We ordered the put-it-together-yourself kit and it sat around for about a month before we found time to get to constructing.

Matt scoring the plywood. Bats like to have footholds, so we were instructed to score all the wood. Matt was very thorough.


Matt drilling the screws into the back. The bat box is supposed to be airtight on the top and sides, because bats don't like to be cold. Bats are a bit high maintenance. We also had to put liquid glue down before we drilled to ensure a tight seal.


Here I am drilling.

Here I am trying to get the glue off of the tube. This was followed by trying to get the glue off of my hands. Which took about a half hour. That was some sticky glue.

We neglected to take a picture of the half-done bat box, but now we are trying to find more time to work on it. We will put three coats of black stain on it and then attach it to a post. Then comes the digging of the post and setting it in concrete. Let's see if we can get this done before summer is over.

1 comment:

Sara K. said...

This is very cool! I can't wait to hear how the bats feel about their new little safe-haven! Keep working on it, they'll love you for it!!! -S