The other day my brother came to work and he looked a little ragged around the edges. Of course, I wondered why he looked so tired. Upon investigating, I discovered he and his wife were awaken by one of those bats flying throughout his house in the middle of the night! Immediately there needed to be action taken. They were able to somehow chase the bat out of the house after quite a foray of ideas that didn't pan out.  The next day they met their next door neighbor outside and discussed the events that had taken place the night before. The neighbor stated that a house down the street had a bat box or bat house in their yard. Thus, the bats in the neighborhood. I'm still having a difficult time convincing them that the bats really are an asset, probably because they were up all night trying to rid their house of the bat and I wasn't!

Since I can't convince my brother and sister in-law of the benefits of bats, I thought I would blog my thoughts on these not so lovable creatures. Bats eat many different things such as nectar from flowers to frogs. But, also on their food list are insects. The Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) can consume over 600 mosquitoes in an hour!  The long eared bat called the Pallid Bat (Antrozous pallidus) will keep your crawling insects like grasshoppers, scorpions and centipedes under control. Having bats foraging around your garden at night will help eliminate the pests that are trying to destroy the same garden.

I figure if the bats are in my garden at night as they are nocturnal, I can only see benefits.