{"id":822,"date":"2013-07-05T20:00:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-06T01:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/?p=822"},"modified":"2013-07-08T13:24:19","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T18:24:19","slug":"bat-in-the-belfry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/?p=822","title":{"rendered":"Bat in the Belfry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For many years I thought it a novel and useful plan to incorporate bats into the ecosystem where I live. Did you know that most bats are insectivores? Moths, beetles, gnats and mosquitoes are among their favorite menu choices. Lowering my nighttime census of these insects is a popular daydream for me. Over a long time period, I studied bat environment, habitat, migration, how to attract bats and the plight of the many bats that unintentionally fall victim to a deadly fungal disease. Then at the end of one busy &#8220;day off,&#8221; after caring for vegetables, berries, garden varieties, honeybees, chickens and stray cats, I was taking a break sitting on an old fallen tree. It was interesting listening to all the &#8220;creatures of the night&#8221; as sunset gave way to darkness. Darkness in the woods has no street lights, just stars and moon light. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw activity that was grand and unmistakable: occasional wings fluttering to propel aerial acrobatics, a small flying creature the size of a swallow (but this was no swallow I have seen), was busy darting all over between the treetops almost to the ground.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130708-130741.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/20130708-130741.jpg\" alt=\"20130708-130741.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nNot too long ago, by accident and apparently good fortune, I dug a small pond as part of a permaculture project. This was originally intended to be a cross sectional and longitudinal study and laboratory experiment in horticultural science. Over time the pond morphed the local landscape in ways that taught me more than I could read in a book, and attracted many creatures, or critters as some people like to refer to them. Among these I have seen skunk, raccoon, fox, deer and more insects than I can count. The most useful feature is a fresh water source for the honeybees, which have a mind of their own as to what to do with habitat, and a loafing area for chickens, ducks and geese. Last but not least I suspect this environmental add-on and its ecosystem relationship attracts the bats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many years I thought it a novel and useful plan to incorporate bats into the ecosystem where I live. Did you know that most bats are insectivores? Moths, beetles, gnats and mosquitoes are among their favorite menu choices. Lowering my nighttime census of these insects is a popular daydream for me. Over a long time period, I studied bat environment, habitat, migration, how to attract bats and the plight&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,9,11,16,22,18,52],"class_list":["post-822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-calendar","tag-academy","tag-horticulture","tag-poultry","tag-hanus","tag-michael","tag-science","tag-calendar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academy.qualityone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}