My son’s Eagle Project, back when he was in Boy Scouts, was planning and overseeing the construction of bat houses and distributing them on a state tree farm located next to the Hiwassee River in Polk County. At first, he was reluctant. Who, after all, wanted to do anything for bats? They were scary, ugly, carried rabies, get in your hair, and they lived in caves and old houses spreading guano.

As an elementary school librarian, I set him straight. I have done the same for all my students until I retired. (Old fool’s tales are quite pervasive.) Bats in Tennessee almost exclusively eat insects, lots of insects. In fact, according to the Tennessee Bat Working Group, “Bats may be the least appreciated animals occurring in the Eastern United States, although as consumers of enormous numbers of insects, they rank as among the most beneficial.” And very, very few test positive for rabies.

There are 16 known species of bats in Tennessee, of which the little brown is the most common where I used to live in Athens. In the summer, I would take my dog out for a walk just before dark, specifically to see the bats flying. For some strange reason, I didn’t see them fly over our street. I had to walk several streets farther south. But when I did so, I was witness to an aerial display of extraordinary proportions. In order to catch their prey, (mayflies, mosquitoes, and the like), they swoop and dive, twist and turn, gyrating in almost impossible maneuvers. Bats eat half their body weight of insects in a night and are the only predator of night-time flying insects. Unfortunately most species of bats are declining. While they are hunted by owls, hawks, raccoons, skunks, and other nocturnal hunters, it is man and a fungus called white-nose disease that are the main culprits in their decline. By destroying habitat, vandalizing where they live, hunting them, disturbing their hibernating places, people have become the bats’ greatest enemy. Let’s think about all the bugs we curse at our backyard barbecues in the summer before being grossed out by a bat. But the fungus has also killed over a million individuals in a short period of time and put the little brown bats on the endangered species list.

As most people know, bats are mammals, the only true flying mammal on the planet. Bats are not blind, but use a sophisticated form of echo-location to navigate in the dark. There are over 1,200 species of Chiroptera, or bats. That is about 20% of all mammal species. The word chiroptera is a Latin word, meaning ‘hand-wing,’ a very apt designation for the flying mammals.

My son, Tommy, is proud of his help in conserving one of Tennessee’s most useful mammals almost 25 years ago. When he decided this would be his Scout project, he found plans for bat houses from Tennessee Wildlife Resources Federation and recruited his fellow Boy Scouts in the Athens Troop 617. He worked closely with Paul Ensminger, then a Tennessee State Forester, and the man in charge of the aforementioned tree farm. Tommy was able to get the donation of lumber from Bill McConkie, who lived just outside of Athens. The same gentleman even cut the pieces to the right sizes. The houses were put together by over a dozen volunteers at our house and at the church that sponsored his troop. These houses could hold several roosting bats, but you can get plans for houses that have extra chambers to hold even more.

On a beautiful fall day, another friend with a truck brought all twenty-plus houses out to the tree farm and delivered them. It would take some other equipment to get them high on the tree trunks, but it was done in time for the bats to scope them out before winter hibernation.

You see, for the uninitiated, Boy Scouts work hard to become Eagles. Every time I get out my Eagle Mother’s Pin and look at it, I remember all my son’s numerous hours of planning, leading, and laboring. I would imagine that by now the bat houses he and his volunteers built are long decayed. I sincerely hope someone else has replaced them in the time since.

Susan Kite is the author of The Mendel Experiment trilogy, My House of Dreams, and Realms of the Cat. She has contributed to several anthologies and won several awards for her published and unpublished works. To check out her books, go to: https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B00J91G0ZU/