Friday, June 4, 2010

I regret to report that Eucalyptus oil

...is not that effective when there are that many clouds of mosquitoes. I managed to get the door part of the gate nailed together, at least, but not a whole lot else done. It was pretty brutal. I may try to switch to an early morning routine - not sure how much of this I can stand, given the bites I've endured every time I'm out there. Apparently part of the reason the bugs are so numerous is that we've had a lot of rain (therefore more standing water and larger vernal pools as breeding grounds) but also we're still suffering from a significantly reduced brown bat population due to the White Nose Fungus syndrome. June and July are the season when mothers have their little ones, so they tend to stay close to their roost while they're nursing the little ones, but the males usually have several roosts. If you've decided to install a bat house in your yard this year, don't get discouraged if you don't think they're taking up residence; apparently the females are more choosy than the males (pups to rear) and the males flit around a bit. Keep it up through at least a year so they get a chance to get used to it's presence. It took a couple years before my aunt & uncle's bat house got settled, but now they have regular resident bats there.

That's all for tonight. See you around the gardens!


- Posted from my iPhone...

1 comment:

Doctor Mom said...

I have an old empty bat house and a lawn with standing water--need to get animal occupants in one and out of the other!