6 Sounds And Noises That Scare Bats Away

If you’ve been noticing bats flying around at night, there are definitely things attracting them to your outdoor space. If that’s the case, it may be time to scare those bats away before they scare you!

If bats are nearby, you may have warm dark spaces, water, or an abundance of insects in your outdoor space. However, there are many loud sounds and noises that you can use like predator sounds, high pitch frequencies, and wind chimes that will scare bats away for good.

Today, we’re talking all about bats, why they’re near and how you can use sounds to scare them away! Keep on reading to find out more!

Why Do You Have Bats In Your Backyard?

There’s nothing spookier than seeing bats fly over your home in the middle of the night. Or maybe you’ve seen bats fly from tree to tree in curved trajectories, which seems fast and erratic to us, but according to the National Library of Medicine is actually very strategic for a bat.

Although there are some things you can do to prevent bats in your yard, a lot of the reasons why they are attracted are just naturally occurring outdoors!

We’re going to touch on why bats are attracted to your backyard below, but if you want more information head on over to our article about what attracts bats, and how to get rid of them!

Bats Are Attracted To Insects

The number one thing that bats are attracted to is insects, so if you have a lot of brush, trees, shrubbery, or vegetation, you may be attracting bats to your yard!

The erratic flight we mentioned before is due to the way in which they catch insects! According to the United States Geological Society, bats find insects through echolocation. They trap the insects in their wings or tail, and then will reach down into their wings or tail to eat it with their mouth.

Some Bats Are Attracted To Fruits

Another reason why you may have bats in your yard is because you have fruit trees or vegetable plants. These bats are often attracted to nectar and pollen as well.

According to the National Forest Service, actual fruit bats are called Large Flying Foxes. Contrary to popular belief, not all bats like fruit, some species do, but if we’re talking about actual fruit bats—it’s these Large Flying Foxes with wingspans up to 3 feet wide! We get the chills even thinking about it.

Bats Are Attracted To Water

Like most animals, bats need water for survival, and lots of it. Since bats have larger wings, they need a lot of water so they don’t get dehydrated!

If you have standing water in your backyard, a pool, or a pond, you will attract bats to your outdoor space.

Bats do a swooping motion to drink water! In flight, they will dive down, swoop over the water grab a gulp, and fly back up to their natural heights.

Bats Love Warm Dark Spaces

Another thing that can be attracting bats to your outdoor space is the availability of warm, dark spaces.

Bats live in colonies that can, at times, fit up to 1000 bats! However, these colonies consist usually of dark, warm, tight places where they will all nestle together and get cozy!

If you think you have 1000 bats in any given space – we’re going to stop you right here, because you need to contact a professional to help you with this situation!

Think caves, think attics, think chimneys, sheds, and garages. We’d freak out too if we saw them in our garage, but just like most animals, bats like warmth and security.

For more information, check out our article about where bats live during the day and night!

Are Bats Bad For Your Yard?

Bats aren’t really bad for your yard, but like any pest, they can spread germs and unwanted problems, especially if they are in abundance.

Bats are nocturnal, so they only come out at night. You won’t be having too many issues during the day. However, problems start to emerge when they get too close to your house because they can find their way into your attics, and walls, and simply, take over!

Truthfully, bats can bite if they get too close. If that happens, you need to seek medical care right away! So although bats do a lot of good like insect control, pollination, and the like, they’re risky to get too close to and it’s best to deter them if you can.

So, without further ado – let’s talk about some ways to scare bats away, and our focus today is on using sounds!

6 Sounds And Noises That Scare Bats Away

Adding sound to your outdoor surroundings may be the best way to scare bats away. The reality is if there are unfamiliar and scary sounds to a bat in the path, they’re going to sense danger and they’re not going to take a chance and roost in an area that is deemed dangerous.

Bats use echolocation – which is frequencies above human hearing to locate prey and communicate.

It’s an interesting mechanism, where bats will produce sounds through their mouth or nose onto a certain object, and then carefully listen to the echo that the object produces to determine the size, shape, and texture!

A bat’s keen sense of hearing allows them to hear above and at human frequency. Since a bat’s hearing is an apparent part of its livelihood, using sound to scare them away works effectively and without any harm.

Wind Chimes Can Scare Bats Away

One way to scare bats away is to add wind chimes around your outdoor space.

Hanging wind chimes high in the trees, or around the perimeter of your house will provide enough, unusual noise to a bat, that will most likely scare them.

Try incorporating a few different-sounding windchimes into your outdoor space as an added benefit to scaring them away.

If you’re looking for wind chimes this Deep Tone Metal Windchime and this Classic Bamboo Windchime are two great options, especially when paired together to help scare bats away. Just remember, placement is key! Adding them close to bat-prone areas, will work the best.

If you have bats getting into your house, try placing the wind chimes up just a bit higher to get closer to their flight path!

Bats Hate Overly Loud Noises

Using overly loud noises in your space can also be enough to keep bats away. Remember, if you have bats around, they’re sleeping during the day, so adding loud noises throughout the day can be enough to get them moving in the nighttime.

This may sound comical at first, but banging on a drum, revving up an engine, or blasting music, will all create loud noise, to scare bats away.

Although we don’t recommend going outside in the middle of the night and doing this if you have neighbors close by, going out in the middle of the night when bats are fully awake and playing music or drumming, would also work to your benefit.

Bats Are Often Scared Of Predator Sounds

Bats have predators like hawks, owls, and snakes, and incorporating some of these sounds through the use of a sound machine into your outdoor space can scare bats away!

Sometimes the simplest method works the best! Grabbing a sound machine like this BirdXPeller Sound Machine which produces natural bird sounds and predator calls, will help scare bats away for good.

Making predator sounds, especially throughout the nighttime, will scare bats away! However, if you want to add a decoy along with the sounds like with this Moving Owl Wing Decoy, you will scare bats even more!

Contrary to popular belief, bats have eyesight and can see predators.

Noisemaker Machines Can Scare Bats Away

Similar to the ultrasonic sound machines, you can just use regular noisemaker machines to scare bats away as well.

Unfamiliar, loud noise is the goal here, so using a regular noisemaker machine may be enough to scare bats away. And hey, you may already have one in your house to try out today!

If you need to purchase one, check out this Guaranteed Non-Looping Sound Machine, which offers a variety of sounds ranging from white noise to the ocean and can be used in a pair, if you purchase two!

Bat Repellent Systems Can Scare Bats Away

I guess it’s kind of in the heading here – but actual real-time bat-repellent systems like Clenerth Bat Repellent System, are created specifically to use sound to scare bats away.

Bats are interesting creatures, and complex if you will, so purchasing a system that is geared towards scaring bats away is designed with a bat mentality and use what they call a “chaotic” sound stream, to scare bats away for good.

Since bats primarily go about their night and day through their sense of sound, leaving it up to a professionally designed bat system to work its magic, will help keep them away.

Woodpecker Noises Will Scare Bats!

If you attract woodpeckers to your outdoor space, and in areas where bats are living in your trees, you will scare bats away.

Woodpeckers peck on wood, and when they do so, they create extremely loud pecking noises that can be heard from a distance!

The sound a woodpecker makes is called drumming and can be referred to as tattooing, tapping, and rapping. The sound is created by the woodpecker rapidly pecking the tree which creates a sound that resonates!

How To Attract Woodpeckers

We’re going to give you some quick ways to attract woodpeckers to your outdoor space, as this may be just the thing you need to control your bat problem:

1. Smear peanut butter in your outdoor space to attract woodpeckers. Believer or not, woodpeckers LOVE peanuts, and giving them some peanut butter to nibble on will quickly become a woodpecker’s paradise!

2. Add Suet Cake feeders to your trees! Woodpeckers love Suet Cake, and will no way to get their little beaks on it! Check out this Suet Cake Feeder For Outside for purchase!

3. Add birdhouses to your trees! With peanut butter, and Suet Cake available, adding a birdhouse directly next to these treats will help keep woodpeckers in your outdoor space, and hopefully, will encourage them to nest there as well!

What Else Can Scare Bats Away?

Although using sound is a great way to scare bats away – there are also other things you can do in combination or alone, to help scare them away!

By adding scents that bats hate to the outdoor space, purchasing bat pesticides, and by adding bright lights to your outdoor space – you can deter bats.

Bats Hate Strong Scents

According to the National Science Foundation, bats have small receptors in their noses that can sense out fruits, foods, or insects!

Interestingly, it’s been found that due to evolution and bats being awake in the darker hours of the night, their sense of scent has evolved so that fruit-eating bats can sense out food at night!

Since bats can in fact smell, there are also smells that they hate, and using these can help keep your bat population down!

Bats Hate Menthol

Think Vicks Vapor Rub or the smell of a mint essential oil. Either way, bats hate menthol and will stay away from it.

More than anything, the smell of menthol is overwhelming, and its minty-fresh smell can be irritating and too strong for a bat to smell!

Adding vapor rub, or mint essential oil around bat-prone trees, in sheds, under decks, or anywhere you see fit to deter bats – can be an easy way to keep them away.

Bats Despise Cloves

Another smell that bats hate is the scent of cloves. Cloves are highly aromatic, and the smell is just irritating to a bat!

Using clove oil, like this Nature Clove Essential Oil, you can add droplets of it to cotton balls, and then place them where you feel bats are visiting.

Further, creating a clove oil spray can work wonders! Adding a few drops of clove oil to water in a spray bottle, you can spray the mixture around trees, plants, structures, ponds, pools – or anywhere else outdoors that bats may be attracted to keep them away!

Cinnamon Repels Bats

Cinnamon is aromatic, and can be very irritating to the senses, especially if you take a big sniff! Now think of a little bat—their small noses will feel irritated, and they will likely stay away from the unfamiliar nature of cinnamon.

By sprinkling ground cinnamon around bat-prone areas, or by throwing cinnamon sticks around trees, in the attic, in your shed or garage, and around pools, you will not only have a heavenly-smelling outdoor space to you, but a horrible-smelling outdoor space for a bat!

Check out our article for a full list and to learn more about the scents that bats hate!

Bat Repellents Can Work Great Against Bats

Another great way to scare bats away is by using a repellent spray like Grandpa’s Gus Double-Potent Rodent Repellent Spray. This spray is made with cinnamon and peppermint oil and can be used to repel all types of rodents!

Since bats hate both cinnamon and peppermint, spraying this spray around your landscaping and outdoor structures will help keep bats away! You may need to repeat this a few times for the bats to eventually get the hint.

Bats Hate Bright Lights

To scare bats away, using bright light will deter them! The addition of bright light at night to your outdoor space through flood or spotlights are going to scare bats from the get-go, considering they are nocturnal and are awake during the night!

Can you imagine being so used to the dark – eating, flying, and living in the dark – only to now be in a bright light? Not only is it confusing, but bright light is dangerous for a bat, because they will be in the view of predators, and will not feel safe.

According to the National Library of Medicine, bats have eyesight, but they don’t see like humans! In a study they conducted, they found that bats didn’t go in the white or green light, which can be because it was brighter, and felt scarce, and on the contrary, bats went towards red and darker lights, which can be a place of safety.

Other Ways To Get Bats Away From Your Home

Just in case you’re still looking for more ways to get bats away from your home, here are some other things that you can try!

Remove Fallen Fruit/Food That Is Near Your House

One of the best ways to deter bats is to remove food sources like fallen fruit and food. And yes, although some bats do eat fruit – the reality is, fallen fruits and food actually attract insects, and those insects are going to attract bats!

Keeping up and maintaining your outside space by picking up fruit scraps from fruit trees, picking vegetable gardens when the vegetables are ripe, and cleaning up garbage cans and food scraps like acorns, and other nuts from trees will create an environment that is not attractive to insects or bats—and in turn, they won’t find your home attractive either!

If you’re interested, take a peak at our guide on the things that attract bats to your yard here!

Plant Fruit Trees Away From Your House

If you do want to have fruit trees and vegetables, it’s always best to plant them far away from your house so that bats don’t find comfort or haven in your house!

Bats will find their way into anything warm, like your attic, under decks, in sheds, garages, or even in the walls of your home!

The best thing you can do to almost attract bats elsewhere, and far enough away, is to plant attractive food sources, away from your home.

Although you may still attract bats, at least they will be far enough so that they don’t find access to your home!

Here’s our detailed guide on keeping bats away from your trees.

Create Outdoor Bat Boxes For Them

If you do want bats but don’t want them messing with your outside surroundings, giving them an actual space, like a bat box, will give them a home that’s in your control!

Bat boxes are great because they provide everything a bat would need to feel safe and warm.

Usually dark in color, and with ridges inside so that a bat can crawl up and stay put, a bat house located in a spot that is lit up from the sun during the day, will be the perfect space for bats to roost.

There are ways that you can build a bat box yourself, or you can look into getting a bat house!

That’s A Wrap!

All in all, if you have bats—we have a solution for you to get rid of them!

However, bats aren’t all that bad, all the time, but if you do happen to have them, giving them a space where they can thrive without bothering you or your things, is a great alternative.

By using sound, you can effectively scare bats away without causing any harm or destruction to your environment. Here is a quick list of the sounds that you can use to scare bats:

• Windchimes
• Loud Noises
• Predator Sounds
• Noisemaker Machines
• Bat Repellent Systems
• Woodpeckers

If you have bats frequenting in places like your attic, then its a good practice on using sounds to repel them!

References

Bar, Nadav S, et al. “A Sensory-Motor Control Model of Animal Flight Explains Why Bats Fly Differently in Light versus Dark.” PLoS Biology, Public Library of Science, 28 Jan. 2015.