Winter Bat Removal— December 17, 2006
The recent warm weather has had us responding to more bat calls than usual for the month of December. We've received calls about active bats scratching in walls and ceilings. We have also had three bats flying around inside houses in the last two weeks, and that is very rare for December. See the Acton Mass listing below to see one of our recent bat control projects. Everything you read will tell you that bats in Massachusetts and Rhode Island go into a deep hibernation in November. We don't see that at all. We consistently find active bats throughout the winter regardless of how cold it gets. See our recent projects below for more details.
We are currently trying to get caught up with work in time for Christmas. Below are some of the interesting projects that we have completed this past month.
Hopkinton Bat Removal
During the first week of January I got a call from a guy in Hopkinton that told me he caught a bat on a glue-board in his attic that was set for mice. He asked me to come assess the situation. While inspecting the attic I found bat hibernating under the fiberglass insulation of the attic. Once on the roof I found 3 bats roosting inside a gable-vent on the exterior of the home. This makes 3 consecutive years that I have found active bats roosting on the exterior of homes in January.
I shot a quick video of these bats and then they flew away unharmed.
Melrose Bat Removal
On January 16th, on a night where the temperatures dipped into the teens we received a call for a bat in a living room in Melrose. The customer informed me that while watching TV she heard some noise in her chimney and then watched this bat drop into the fireplace. She lost track of the bat as she ran out of the room. Once I arrived I found the bat clinging to the back of a piece of furniture. Once on the roof I found that a very deteriorated (and un-capped) chimney is what allowed the bat to enter the house. A Chimney cap would have prevented this from happening.
Acton Bat Removal
These pictures are from a bat removal project that I performed in Acton MA last week. I found these three bats roosting in the outer blades of a large gable vent on a night that the temperature got as low as 27 degrees. It is very rare to find bats roosting outside in such cold weather. I removed the bats by hand and then placed them on a piece of plywood to allow them to recuperate. It was about 30 minutes later that they regained their composure and flew away unharmed.
You can also view a short video of these bats.
Removing Bats in the Winter months
During the winter months big brown bats will hibernate in the attics and wall voids of houses in our area. These bats will occasionally wake up from hibernation and be active within the house. This is why we get calls for bats in the living space of houses throughout the winter. Even though the bats are technically "hibernating" and should not be active we find that they do move around inside the house but they generally do not leave the house to go out and feed during the winter months. Because they are not actively leaving the house at night as they do in the warmer months it is difficult to solve a bat problem in the winter. For a bat exclusion service to be successful we rely on the bats actively entering and exiting the house. If the weather is decent during the winter we will often perform bat exclusion services although you cannot expect immediate results as the bats might not exit the house until the daytime temperatures reach the mid-60's for several consecutive days.
