Poppy Hour: Creating a Bat-friendly Garden

Bats play an important ecological role. By eating insects, bats provide pest control, reduce the need for insecticides, and create nitrogen rich fertilizer with their guano. With increases in development and urbanization, finding ways to encourage biodiversity in human dominated ecosystems can create less stress on species impacted by habitat loss. One way to do this is to create a bat-friendly garden in your own backyard. With some simple considerations, you can potentially provide food, shelter, and water to your local bats.

Flor will discuss the basics or creating a bat friendly garden. We will talk about what native plants are best to host insect food sources, the importance of landscape structure, and other bat friendly considerations that can turn your home into an urban bat haven.

Flor Calderón is a native Angelino and local wildlife biologist focused on researching bats. She has been studying bats for the past 8 years, working for agencies such as USGS, National Park Service and WY Game and Fish. Following her passion for studying bats led her to live somewhat of a nomadic lifestyle working seasonal positions in places like Hawaii, Washington, Wyoming, and Alaska, but her favorite place to catch bats is the desert southwest. Since returning home to Los Angeles, she has sought out any opportunity to volunteer and spread the word about bat conservation.
Join us for this free, informative presentation. Bring your questions!
Follow Flor on Instagram: @batbiobruja
Learn more about bats here:

Bat Conservation International
https://www.batcon.org/

Plants for butterflies and moths (bat food!)
https://theodorepayne.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BUTTERFLIES-2016_FINAL.pdf

Natural History Museum
https://nhm.org/community-science-nhm/backyard-bats

The Butterfly Net: Lepidoptera Conservation Tool
https://ctcosma.shinyapps.io/the_butterfly_net/

Friends of LA River

Bats of the LA River

Follow Flor on Instagram!
http://instagram.com/batbiobruja

Poppy Hour is our California native plant internet mashup. Part interviews, part garden tour, part happy hour, we explore the amazing diversity of people and ideas that connect to Southern California plants and landscapes. Join us!
All previous episodes are archived on our YouTube channel.