BLOG OF iECYCLE

It’s starting to warm up here in NC. Flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing, birds are singing and mosquito season is on the horizon. Once summer hits and the temperatures here soar during the day, it’s nice to be able to enjoy the cooler evenings for walking or just sitting on the porch. Unfortunately the bloodsuckers often keep me and mine indoors. We are loathe to hose ourselves down with bug spray or pollute our lawn with chemicals to inhibit the mosquito life-cycle. Nature has thankfully provided us with two very efficient mosquito killers for aerial and aquatic support.

Bats are often misunderstood animals. People often fear them as blood drinking creatures of the night and spreaders of disease. The truth about bats is that very few species drink blood and those are located in only a few areas. They are also infrequently carriers of rabies, so people that don’t directly handle bats have little need for concern. Bats are invaluable to many ecosystems as pollinators, seed dispersal agents and, in my region of the country, insectivores. A single brown bat can eat 1000 mosquito sized insects in an hour of feeding. Lactating females can eat their body’s weight in insects each night. By providing a suitable shelter for them, people can encourage these beneficial predators to move in and hunt close to their homes. It may take as much as a year or two for a house to be found and inhabited by bats, but with the right planning these swooping gluttons can drastically cut mosquito populations. Bat houses are for sale online from places such as Bat Conservation International and even Amazon.com or build your own.

Another way to fight off the mosquitoes is to eliminate them in their aquatic egg and larval forms. Standing water sources such as birdbaths, fish ponds and even rain barrels can provide breeding space for these nuisances. Luckily there are easily available fish that dine on them. Minnows and goldfish are good at scarfing up mosquitoes in these vulnerable stages of life. The best is the Gambusia affinis and is such a good predator of mosquitoes that is nicknamed the “mosquito fish”.

I’ll be instituting this two-pronged strategy against the mosquitoes here in NC as soon as the last frost of spring is behind us.