[NatureNS] little brown bats

Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 11:17:02 -0300
From: "Andrew Hebda" <HEBDAAJ@gov.ns.ca>
To: "Naturens" <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
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This time of the year, northern bat species engage in two behaviours,
both based out of their normal winter hibernation sites.

The first, foraging, occurs as long as evening and night temperatures
stay above freezing. Individuals leave their hibernacula and feed in the
normal manner as long as there is food available.   As fall progresses,
these feeding binges may become restricted to early evening hours, then
will cease altogether.  So, with the fall that we have this year, we
should expect to see foraging activity, certainly well into November.

The second behaviour is mating. Once in the hibernacula, males hwo have
just roused from a torporous will, (apparently) randomly, mount nearby
individuals (usually females), and mate with them.  These females
usually are still in a torpid state at the time.  The females then store
the sperm in the uterine lining until spring comes, at which time both
the sperm and egg(s) are released and fertilization takes place.

So, feeding this time of year is still a go.

Andrew

A Hebda
Curator of Zoology

>>> "john belbin" <jbelbin@ns.sympatico.ca> 10/20/2006 7:28 PM >>>
Two little brown bats have spent the evening flitting about and
foraging
over my lawn, several times coming within a few centimetres of the
picture
window in my living room. This is a real surprise as they are almost
the
only bats we have seen here this summer - the bat box overlooking the
stream
has been empty and ignored all year for the first time since I put it
up.
These two were highly active and I watched them catching insects for
about
25 minutes, until it got too dark to see. For all I know they could
still be
out there.

Some of the on-line material about Little Brown Bats tells me that
they
usually don't eat from September to may - well someone should tell
these
two! They were doing very well. Maybe we are having an "Indian Summer"
and
they decided to take advantage of it. Certainly there have been a lot
of
insects about for the last couple of days. Anyway it is good to see
them
again - even my neighbours had been asking where the bats had gone
this
year.

John Belbin - Kingston


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