Somewhere in Locust Valley — we are not at liberty to disclose the precise location — there is a house with a wide wraparound porch that every spring becomes a maternity colony for an extended family of tricolored bats. The females arrive in April, rear their pups through the spring and early summer, taking turns foraging and caring for the babies, and disperse by early July.

It is the only known maternity colony of tricolor bats (Perimyotis subflavus) in New York State, according to Casey Pendergast, a biologist at the Department of Environmental Conservation.

For local chiropterologists — scientists who study bats — this little nursery is something to be fiercely protected. In the past 20 years, at least 12 of the 47 bat species native to the United States have declined precipitously,

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