February 16

This morning, the kids built a bat box with the Young Naturalists' Club
bat box building workshop.  As a group, we built eight boxes,
four of which will be erected in the Great Blue Heron Reserve
and four at the Camp River Wilderness area at a later date.
  I've always been a bit creeped out about bats but after this morning,
I think we are going to build our own boxes to encourage the bats
to come to our place!  If one bat can eat 600 mosquitoes in one hour,
bring them on!!  Very interesting morning.

Edited to add...
We even made it into the local newspaper!!
http://www.chilliwacktimes.com/technology/Scene+City+Thinking+inside/7983349/story.html


Collecting our supplies. 

Counting out the necessary screws. 

Screwing our bat box together.

Roughing up the center post.  The rougher the better.
This makes it easier for the bats to crawl up and cling to.

Screwing the roof at shingles on.  It's very important to have sealed seams
to keep the heat in.  The warmer the box, the faster the babies will grow.

Painting our finished bat box.
Each bat box can hold up to 300 bats at a time!!
Bats are endangered in our area because of the fact that there is very little
'housing possibilities' for them.  By building and erecting bat boxes,
we will encourage bats to repopulate, and thus helping us clear the air of
pesky mosquitoes and other insects.