You see the swarm.
Midnight. Or dusk, mostly.
Your garden.
And the immediate panic sets in. Rabies. Invasion. Call an exorcist or a exterminator.
Society hates bats.
They’re spooky.
Unclean.
Vectors for apocalypse scenarios.
But here is the thing nobody wants to admit when they are clutching their petunias:
You should be happy they are there.
We talked to three experts. A pro gardener. A bat mitigation specialist. A biology professor.
Their consensus is surprisingly calm.
The bats are not the enemy.
Are They Coming for You?
Benji Carper owns Benji’s Bats Beggone. He knows what people want to hear and what they need to know.
He says it is a yellow flag, not a red one.
“Just because you see bats circling your does not mean they are an issue,” Carper says.
It’s just biology.
They don’t travel thirty miles to dinner.
They stay close.
Very close to home.
So yes.
Check the eaves.
Check the attic.
Make sure there isn’t a colony roosting inside your wall.
That would be a problem.
But seeing them outside?
Bobby Fokidis from Rollins College calls it “ecological proof.”
Proof that your environment is functioning.
He wants you to relax.
Get a drink.
Watch them loop quietly over the lawn.
“If bats are looping quietly over your yard take it as proof something is going right,” Fokidis says. “Pull out your lawn chair.”
Think about it.
Why spend thousands on chemicals if nature has free pest control on wings?
They Eat the Bugs (And The Dirt Likes It Too)
Tammy Sons is a gardener. She likes harvest. She hates beetles eating said harvest.
She sees bats and thinks “ally.”
A single bat eats thousands of insects a night.
Mosquitoes. Moths. Beetles.
The usual suspects that make leaf-closing impossible.
But that’s just the food.
What about the droppings?
Guano is fertilizer gold.
Nitrogen. Phosphorus. Potassium.
Compost it properly and it feeds the soil better than most bagged blends.
Fokidis adds another layer to the gratitude.
Pollination.
Out West and in the tropics bats do the heavy lifting.
Agave. Cacti.
Plants evolved to work with bats, not bees.
Bees are too slow for night-blooming flowers.
So the next time you drink a margarita.
Think about the bat.
The one you probably tried to scare away last Tuesday.
“Without bats they will collapse,” Fokidis warns regarding agave crops.
Build A Box (Far Away)
Want them?
Give them food and a home.
Plant natives.
Native plants bring bugs.
Bugs bring bats.
It is a chain.
Simple. Effective.
Then buy a bat box.
Treat it like a birdhouse but with higher stakes.
You need elevation. Ten to sixteen feet up.
No streetlights shining on it.
No thick weeds hiding it.
Carper is adamant on one rule.
Keep the box away from your house.
“You don’t want to attach a batch box to your house,” Carper says. “You want to make sure they are distanced.”
Do not invite them into the drywall.
Keep the dinner party outside.
The yard.
The fence post.
Not the ceiling fan above your bed.
They’ll eat the bugs.
They’ll fertilize the dirt.
And you can finally stop worrying about the flapping shadows.
