TUCSON - If you have a hummingbird feeder at your home, wildlife officials are asking for your help to watch for bats.
Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and local researchers are seeking volunteers from throughout southern Arizona to monitor use of their home hummingbird feeders by nectar-feeding bats.
"If your hummingbird feeders mysteriously drained during the night last summer, the midnight raiders may have been bats," says AGFD Regional Supervisor Raul Vega.
"Most of Arizona's 28 bat species eat insects, but two species drink nectar and eat pollen from plants such as the saguaro and agaves. These bats are becoming common visitors to southern Arizona hummingbird feeders in late summer and early fall," adds Vega.
In southern Arizona, there are two bat species that consume nectar: the lesser long-nosed bat, which is listed as federally endangered; and the Mexican long-tongued bat, an Arizona species of concern. These gentle, beneficial pollinators live in caves and mines. During summer nights, they travel in search of food, and over time, have found their way to hummingbird feeders in southern Arizona. The bats are migratory and return to Mexico in the fall.
The use of hummingbird feeders by bats has been documented in southern Arizona for many years. In 2006, large numbers of bats were detected foraging on hummingbird feeders in the urban areas surrounding the Tucson basin. Bats visiting the feeders is now being detected more widely in southern Arizona, and volunteers are currently monitoring them as far north as Dove Mountain near Pinal County and as far south as Nogales in Santa Cruz County.
Habitat conservation planning by the City of Tucson and the Town of Marana has spearheaded these efforts to evaluate potential effects to these bat species in the Tucson basin.
Those willing to participate in the project, conducted in partnership with City of Tucson and Town of Marana, should contact Adjunct Professor Ted Fleming of the University of Arizona at:
ted@sonaura.net or 520-797-5609.
