We also need to be concerned that day time flying bats in winter could have
white nose syndrome...a fungal infection that causes them to awaken
prematurely and fly about in winter. It hasn't been detected in WA yet and
I am not saying it is...but just a heads up as this is one behavior
biologists in the east associate with white nose syndrome.

Jeff Kozma

Yakima

j c r underscore 5105 at charter dot net.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Falxa" <GFalxa at cascadiaresearch.org>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 6:27 PM
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] RFI: Winter active bats in WA state


In response to Stefan's request - RFI: Winter active bats in WA state:

> Does anybody know what kind of bat that could have been?

Nice report, Stefan. I wish I could narrow it down for you, but here on the
wet side of the state we've recorded at least 6 species out moving around
during the winter months (using ultrasonic detectors & a webcam), so it's
not really possible to determine which species you might have been watching.
If it was foraging in the canopy, then the long-eared myotis, Calif. myotis,
Long-legged/Hairy-winged myotis , or Townsend's big-eared bats are the
likely suspects...

The majority recorded here during the winter have been California myotis and
Silver-haired bats, which can are found foraging on winter evenings if the
weather is not too crummy and temp. is at or above around 40F. I wouldn't
call 40F a warm evening, but warmer evenings *do* produce more 'echolocation
hits' on the bat detectors.

There are also published and non-pub. reports of bats seen or 'detected'
flying in subfreezing conditions, on both sides of the Cascades (and
beyond), some when air temp. was down into the 16 - 20F range. Jon Lucas in
the tri-cities area has recorded bats flying on nights that were well below
freezing.

Also, I assume you saw this bat in the daytime or at dusk conditions --
maybe it's an owl avoidance strategy! I receive occasional daytime bat
flight reports, and I once had a radio-tagged Big brown bat (Eptesicus
fuscus) that spent 5 days on an afternoon foraging schedule during a spring
beetle hatch. Occasionally daytime flight of bat reports appear on Tweeters,
like this one from Mike D. :

--------copied from Mike's post --------
> Mike and MerryLynn m.denny at charter.net
> Mon Feb 2 20:41:33 PST 2009
>
> Hello All,
>
>On 2 Dec.2002 MerryLynn and I watched a Big Brown Bat
> fly out from under a talus slope west of Windust Park along
>the Snake River. The air temp had spiked into the high fifties.
>
>Later Mike
--------end of Mike's post----------

Thanks for the post, I'll add this to my growing list of anecdotal winter
(and daytime?) bat reports. Some winter bat into is on our web site
<http:www.cascadiaresearch.org/bats/winter>

Greg Falxa, Olympia, WA
gfalxa at cascadiaresearch.org

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