Building the "Rocket Box" Bat House
We recently moved to Western Washington, and decided it would be fun to have a bat box in our new backyard. There are definitely plenty of mosquitoes to feast upon!
Barbara Christensen, of Conservation Northwest ( barbara at conservationnw.org) supplied us with the plans for the Rocket Box bat house, designed by Bats Northwest.
You can download the rocket box plans here.
Her email introduction for the plans:
Here are plans I created for Bats Northwest for a “rocket box,” which seems to be the most successful homemade version here in the Northwest. You may find that if you have enough trees, bats may not need extra habitat, as many species in this area are tree dwellers, but it never hurts to add more habitat to any yard!
There is of course no guarantee, and it can take several years for bats to find your house, but there are things you can do to improve your chances. There is info in the PDF as well. In the Pacific Northwest, bats want warm places to roost, so put your house where it gets as much sun as possible. Paint it a dark color. It is very important to caulk the sides and top so the bats' body heat will be retained. Keep it high and safe from predators (on a pole or on a building),
This plan is meant for a pole, as they seem to work best around here and most people don’t want guano on the walls, but there are also plans for flat boxes in a book called Bat House Builder’s Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0974237914/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=rocksthatlook-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0974237914)
The only thing left is patience. Bats are faithful to their known roosts, so it sometimes it takes a number of years for them to find a new one. But once they come, they will stay!
Happy bat-watching,
Barbara
With these notes and the plans in hand (posted here with permission) we set about creating the bat house! It took about a weekend's worth of effort to put it together.
We hope that our build notes will help out fellow bat box builders!