Vermont’s occurrence records list only 14 documented eastern red bat sightings across more than two decades, one of the sparser records among the state’s mapped mammals. A count that thin reflects how well this bat hides, roosting alone in tree foliage, rather than how rarely it actually passes through.
A solitary roost along forest edges and water
Vermont’s handful of red bat records comes from Green Mountains forest edges and the shoreline habitat around Lake Champlain and the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, the kind of open water and wetland edge where insects swarm at dusk and a red bat can hunt without competing with the cave-roosting bats working the forest interior. Unlike Vermont’s other bats, it never roosts in a cave or building; it hangs alone from a single leafy branch, disguised as a curled dead leaf.
A narrow summer window
Every Vermont record falls between July and September, with none in spring or late fall. That narrow window likely marks the height of the bat’s brief Vermont breeding season, arriving from the south in spring and heading back out again by late October, rather than the full stretch of time it’s actually present in the state.
Status in Vermont
NatureServe ranks the red bat S4B, apparently secure as a breeding species in Vermont, and it’s native to the state. The “B” in that rank flags a status that applies specifically to Vermont’s breeding season, a distinction migratory species get because a bat present for only part of the year can be secure while it’s breeding here and far rarer everywhere else along its route.
Full species profile
