The restored barn gable with bat house and barn owl box
Sept 2001 - The upper part of the south gable end of our barn has been battened both inside and out and the hay entrance replaced with a window. The small opening on the right with the turned perch opens to a large nest box for our barn owls. Hopefully, they will discover the box this winter when the scaffolding is down and nest there next spring. An infrared videocamera is permanently mounted in this box. The small opening on the left is the entrance to the interior bat house. Vertical bars on this entrance exclude birds. A small opening at the top of one of the three chambers in this bat house allows the bats to enter from the interior of the barn. This will eventually be closed, allowing access from the outside only. A plastic window box under the bat house collects the guano and can easily be emptied at the end of the season. Fiberglass mesh prevents the bats from entering the guano box. I am presently building windows to replace the ventilators and continuing down the wall with battens. But, in the meantime, most of the bats have already moved to an outside bathouse.
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© 2001, American Artifacts and Richard Van Vleck, Taneytown, Maryland.