He Doesn't Look Like Much..

...but you try to take a photo of a bat buzzing aloft, at dusk, flying in super sonic-like circles around your back yard.  Whew, I actually got dizzy following him around.  He was much too fast for the autofocus and this almost in focus manual capture was pure luck.

Last April, I bought two bat houses.  When they came in the mail they had strict instructions.  The bat house must be at least 10 feet from the ground, they need to face a certain direction preferably in an open area, and they must be in place by mid-April or the bats will not come. 

The enticement of natural mosquito control had me up on the ladder 10 feet in the air on THE step, you know the one you're not supposed to stand on, risking life and equilibrium,  hugging a 50 foot pine tree with one arm and swinging a hammer with the other.  It was truly a life-flashing moment, twice.  (Two bat houses, remember.) 

Sadly, it was not a case of build it(or in this case scale a ladder) and they will come.  The bats apparently had their own real estate agents because they all made other arrangements.

That is why tonight, had you been walking near our place, you would have heard Fin and me yelling at the bat circling our yard that we had a perfectly good bat house, it had been there since mid-April, and the bat was welcome to move in.