Bats in the Garden: How to Attract these Nocturnal Creatures this Halloween
As the spooky season gets underway, what could be better than a bit of bat spotting from your very own back garden? In Lancashire and Cumbria, many of us are lucky enough to have seen bats flying around at night, especially in the more rural parts of the counties. But you may not realise that a popular garden ornament - one you could very well have set up in your garden right now - are actually keeping these fascinating creatures away.
Garden wildlife experts are encouraging the UK public to provide hibernation habitats for endangered bats in their gardens, with Halloween being the perfect time of year to provide a home for winter.
In the UK, there are 18 species of bats, which make up 25 per cent of all UK mammal species. However, with bat populations under threat due to increasing loss of habitat, it’s vital we’re able to make homes and safe places in gardens to help create a safe place for them to live.
“Bats are mammals like us and have a long association with humans, frequently living alongside us in our houses and outbuildings. Like humans, they only have one baby a year (or sometimes even less) and so every life is precious. The loss of any habitat can take many years or even decades to recover due to their slow breeding rate.” - Sean McMenemy, Garden Wildlife Expert
Lights Out for Bats
If you have bright lights in your garden, this could prevent bats from getting the rest they need after a night of feeding. They want to sleep and rest, but they can’t do that with bright lights in or near their nest. Bats do not like bright flashes of light. Sudden bursts of bright light are disorienting and irritating. If you have reflective surfaces such as metal ornaments that perch between your plants, these can catch the light and frighten them away.
Uninviting Scents
On a whole, if you have any of the following in your garden, this could prevent them from nesting and could potentially contribute to their extinction: bats don’t like the smell of mothballs, white phenol, cinnamon, or eucalyptus.
Attracting Bats to Your Garden this Halloween
The best time to spot bats is at dusk. Bats are nocturnal insectivores and fly around consuming huge numbers of night-flying insects including biting gnats, mosquitoes, and moths. The best way to attract bats to your garden is by inviting moths with lots of night-scented flowers.
Sean McMenemy recommends planting evening and night-scented flowers that both look and smell great while also attracting moths to encourage bats to visit, including:
- Evening primrose
- Honeysuckle
- Tobacco plant
- Night phlox
- Star jasmine
- Sweet rocket
- Night scented stock
This Halloween, you’re most likely to spot a pipistrelle bat as they are the most common species in the UK - but look closely as they are small and weigh less than a pound coin.
Kim Kardashian’s Spooky Halloween Decorations
In other Halloween news, Kim Kardashian has given her sister Kourtney a run for her money on the creepiest Halloween decorations. The reality star took to Instagram to share how she transformed her home into a haunted mansion.
Kim’s spooky decorations feature a mock scene of ghosts sitting around a bonfire, an archway made out of skeleton heads around her front door, and a hand garden with hundreds of hand moldings sticking out of the ground.
