Washington’s 100 California myotis records gather around Puget Sound, with King, Kitsap, Whatcom, and Island counties leading and Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve holding more records than any other named site. For a bat this small, the records point to sheltered inland waters, wooded shorelines, and forest edges like those around the San Juan Islands National Monument.
One of the West’s smallest bats
The California myotis weighs about as much as a nickel. It flies low and slow over water and forest clearings, picking moths, flies, and other soft-bodied insects out of the air with delicate, maneuverable wingbeats that larger bats cannot match. By day it tucks into crevices under loose bark, in rock cracks, and in buildings, roosting alone or in small groups rather than the great colonies of its bigger relatives.
A summer-weighted record
Washington sightings build through summer and crest in August, when young bats are on the wing and feeding hard before the cold sets in. Winter counts fall close to zero because the species hibernates in sheltered crevices and goes unseen, not because it leaves the state.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the California myotis S4, Apparently Secure, in Washington, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
