Stokes Beginner's Guide to Bats

I have yet to go wrong with any of the little Stokes beginner's guides, and this one is no exception. Full of good information, excellent photos accompanied by reference icons and range maps. If you are just getting into learning about bats, this is the book to have, and if you already love them and just need a very portable field guide, this is an easy one to take along. It is simple enough to interest kids, but informational enough for any adult.

Never realized just how many bats there are. I bought this along with the Bat Builder's Handbook for my grand daughers. We can't wait to have some bats move in.

The fact that you're reading this review indicates that you already know that bats are good guys, not bad guys. 'Nuff said. Next thing, you'd probably like to have a bunch (they only come in quantities) in your yard. OK, then start with this Stokes guide. It's bedecked with stunning photos and a cool set of symbols that tell you about migrational (with apologies to Monty Python) patterns, roosting preference, how they fly, and what the little guys like to munch on. The Stokes Guide will also tell you how to make a bat house so they have a decent place to crash, but you might just as well buy one inexpensively at your local quality birding shop. You can't go wrong with this attractively presented Beginner's Guide to Bats.

Last Christmas I got a Bat Detector (from Bat Conservation International). The instructions with it were very poor so I asked a local naturalist if she knew of any good bat books and specifically any that would indicate what frequency to tune the bat detector in to for our local bats. She recommended this book and its terrific! There's a short section up front that talks about bats and how they echolocate as well as the frequencies that they do it at so this was perfect for me and my bat detector (boy is it cool!). The real meat of the book is an id guide with great pictures and interesting information about each ofthe different species of bats - similar to a bird id book. Since bats are genenerally out at dusk and they fly so fast I haven't been able to make use of the pictures and actually id the bats but I've narrowed it down by where we live and what we're likely to see so its fun to have a reference to read about them more specifically. Excellent excellent book and a must have if you've just gotten a bat detector and need to know what frequency to tune into. Highly recommended!