Who are you?? I'm Batman!!

So our soon-to-be neighbor informed us that the community has bats living nearby.
My wife, the ecologist, knew all about bats, but I didn't. So I did a google search for the birds...I mean mammals.

According to the Fish & Wildlife Service...

All southeastern bats found in the United States feed exclusively on insects (the Jamaican fruit-eating bat eats insects and fruit). A bat feasting on moths, mosquitos, beetles and other insects can eat one half of its body weight in one night! Backyard bats will help reduce insect pests that bother you and your garden plants. A typical summer colony of 100 bats feeding 200 days will consume more than 2200 pounds of insects or approximately 600,000,000 bugs!

That's a lot of dead bugs and probably a lot of guano too! I'm all for getting rid of those bugs around our house. Plus I still feel guilty for knocking down some of their trees.

So we've decided to use some of the building scrap material to construct a few bat houses. We have room at the back of the property for a couple of them and maybe we can convince the Community to place a few more in the common areas. They are actually pretty simple to construct.

They can be made with scrap CDX plywood, screws and some tar paper. Bats like it warm, so it needs to be caulked tight and painted dark to gain solar heat.
Interested in building?
Here's the plans.