Tuesday 15 March 2016

We aren't going batty – house repairs

I bought this bat house and put it up in Bala. It didn't work - too close to the window! I brought it with me here. I didn't have a place for it here,
bat house in Bala
until the woodpeckers had been bug hunting. The bat house has worked, covering up the big hole, until we have another woodpecker. This is the problem with wooden walls. One year it was the red wings building a nest in the bathroom vent. I replaced that. (What an adventure!)

  March 8 or 9th I noticed the new hole. Until I enlarged the photos, I didn't see the smaller one.

The first task was getting the ladder down from its storage place. It necessitates taking the car out of the garage. I needed a ladder to get to the ladder. I have to grab it, slide it back onto the railing (on the left), into the kitchen door, and back out onto the garage floor.

 March 10th, climbing the ladder, I removed the bat house and the stick, with hubby holding the ladder. When I removed it I saw the old hole, the same size as the new one! A perfect circle. How do they do that?!

Dorah was upset with the noise I was making. She watched from the widow!

 Having replaced it with a piece of board, I wondered what else to do with it. It was a gentle rain, and we were dampish. I had to decide if I would paint the wood, or what. I had some nesting boxes around the corner of the house, which haven't been use. Why not attach them to the new piece of wood?

Several holes
Anyway, I moved the nesting cylinders from the back of the house to the side. They didn't use them before as they were near the Muskoka Room. We'll see if they use them here. I hope, at least, to dissuade the woodpeckers! Finally, I put the bat house back up, where the nesting cylinders used to be.

13 comments:

Lisa @ Two Bears Farm said...

I love bats. They are becoming endangered. We have bats that live in our upstairs window. They have been there for years and we sometimes hear them at night. Doesn't bother me a bit as they don't come inside.

DeniseinVA said...

Woodpeckers can be very persistent but I didn't realize they could do that much damage to a home. I used to wake up to them tapping on the siding over our bedroom window but the wood was replaced by metal siding years ago after a bad storm we had. Sometimes I still hear them. What a lovely idea to put a bat house up, and also those nesting rings. I have never seen those before. You take good care of your wildlife.

eileeninmd said...

Hello, The bats will be happy with their houses. Happy Tuesday, enjoy your day!

Out To Pasture said...

Will look forward to future posts on the bat situation. They still swoop around my yard in the evening but I have no idea where they roost. Of course with the barn, outbuildings and hollow trees around, they are spoiled for choice. Aside from woodpecker damage, I also have red squirrel damage. But that's life, warts and all!

DUTA said...

"I needed a ladder to get to the ladder" - that made me smile. Sometimes, especially in the country, life presents us with all sorts of situations, partly funny ones(the woodpeckers'causing damage is not funny). Never a dull moment. You seem to deal well with everything.

William Kendall said...

Hopefully the solution works!

Anonymous said...

I love the bat cave! We have them up in trees in the neighbourhood.

Nancy J said...

It all sounds like lots of hard work. The tall triangular ladder that goes way past the roof line? Is that really a ladder or something else? And the nesting cylinders, what a great idea. Down here, we have starling boxes, Hugh made them and they are on top of a trellis railing. I love to see the birds taking in dry straw or grass to line the boxes in spring. We have rain, glorious rain.

Powell River Books said...

What kind of bird uses your nesting cylinders? My bat house is called the roof. - Margy

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
...I'm thinking the peckers must be using the batbox as their hold-on to leverage into those walls; it is providing with those super powers of symmetrical hole creation! Meanwhile it is entertaining your readers to discover what must be done about the &*> YAM xx

Red said...

You're never still! woodpeckers and squirrels can keep a person busy.

Jenn Jilks said...

@Jean above the roof line is the Internet dish! It's on the old tower for the TV antennae, which we gave away!

Jenn Jilks said...

They don't, yet use my special cylinders, Margy. Maybe this year, now that I moved them! The red-wing or grackle was trying to use the bathroom vent, so I tried to fix that!