Help collect data on bats with a taste for hummingbird feeder sweetness

Volunteers are needed to monitor the use of their home hummingbird feeders by nectar-eating bats.

The Arizona Game and Fish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and local researchers are hoping to find volunteers to send information — and photos — of bat activity at their backyard feeder.

“If your hummingbird feeders mysteriously drained during the night last summer, the midnight raiders may have been bats,” said Raul Vega, the regional supervisor for the Arizona Game and Fish Department in a news release.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“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.” In Southern Arizona, those two bat species are the lesser long-nosed bat, which is listed as federally endangered, and the Mexican long-tongued bat, a department news release said.

The use of hummingbird feeders by bats flying on summer nights in search of food has been documented in Southern Arizona for many years.

Email Emily Scobie, the project’s volunteer coordinator, at escobie@azgfd.gov, to volunteer.