What do bats find so appealing in the almond orchards along Interstate 5?

DEAR JOAN: While driving on I-5 near the almond orchards, I noticed what appeared to be bat houses between the road and the trees.

I could only get a glimpse at freeway speed, but it looked like the only openings were on the bottom. Are these bat houses, and what is the advantage of having them near the orchard?

Phil, San Jose

DEAR PHIL: I’m glad you didn’t try to get a good look at them, as you drove by. Imagine explaining to the highway patrol officer that you were distracted by bat condos.

Yes, those are bat houses. The openings to the houses are on the bottom of the structure so that bat guano falls to the ground and doesn’t muck up the place.

California produces 99 percent of the country’s almond crop, making it an extremely valuable asset. The bats, which are voracious insect eaters, help to protect the almonds from codling moths, which can easily wipe out almost half of the annual crop.

Each box provides daytime roosts for about 100 bats, and come dusk, the bats leave their home and swoop through the orchards looking for adult insects and larvae. Although the bats – mostly Mexican free-tailed and pallid bats – are small, they can eat up to 7 tons of insects a year.

The bats also are more efficient and better for the environment than using insecticides.

DEAR JOAN: Here is another deer story. We live up a hill in Almaden with lots of open space. One morning on our driveway camera, I saw a coyote come trotting quickly down from the open space up above us.

He stopped and looked behind him.Then came a deer skidding around the corner after him. She stared a minute and then charged. He took off into the orchard area. She stopped a minute and then took off after him. He ran back over the driveway and up the hill. She followed him and watched him go. I swear I could see her brushing off her hooves and snickering.

Pat DeWhitt, San Jose

DEAR PAT: Deer can be quite aggressive — and apparently smug.

DEAR JOAN: There is another probable cause for the squirrel’s bare spots on her back (mentioned in the Jan. 9 column). Squirrels have two breeding seasons per year, and babies start appearing on Valentine’s Day and July 4.

Figure in the gestation period — around 45 days — and you may find some romantic male might be the cause. We see the cycle quite regularly.

Ted, Antioch

DEAR TED: I should have thought of that. Some lively squirrel loving is a much better alternative to an itchy disease or a nest full of mites, although only the squirrel knows for sure.

DEAR JOAN: Do birds fly when it’s raining?

J.B., Oakland

DEAR J.B.: If they have someplace important to go.

Birds can navigate through most rainy weather, although not as easily as they can through clear skies. Like us, they prefer to stay out of the rain. But they’ll venture out to find food, not having access to Uber Eats, and with GrubHub being an entirely different thing to them.

Animal Life runs on Mondays. Contact Joan Morris at AskJoanMorris@gmail.com.