• Nev Tarrant's hand-built bat box of stacked bark-on logs standing on a mossy tree stump in a garden
  • A colony of microbats roosting inside the bat box, seen from the open bottom
  • The hand-built bat box photographed straight on against a plain cream background
  • A microbat climbing up into the open bottom of the bat box, the only way in
  • The bat box mounted on a weathered post at the edge of a paddock in morning light
  • A microbat landing at the underside of the bat box in golden evening light
  • The bat box fixed to a mature eucalypt trunk in dappled light
  • View from below into the open bottom of the bat box, showing the narrow grooved roosting crevices
  • Macro detail of the thick untreated bark-on logs and the narrow gaps between them

Final run from Nev’s shed outside Chiltern • In 14 active carts • 61 left

Nev's Hand-Built Bat Box

Nev's Hand-Built Bat Box

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Nev Tarrant
Hand-built by Nev Tarrant
★★★★★ 4.8 (190+)
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Nev Tarrant's hand-built bat box of stacked bark-on logs standing on a mossy tree stump in a garden

Nev's Hand-Built Bat Box

€35,95
€35,95 €67,95
SAVE €32 Sold out
🦇

Built in a converted dairy shed outside Chiltern, north-east Victoria

Nev Tarrant, 71. Entomologist for thirty-eight years. Sixty-one boxes left against the shed wall, and then no more.

“A box doesn’t bring the moths back. But there’s no sense in the insects coming back to a district where there’s nowhere to sleep. One of those problems takes a hundred and fifty years. The other one takes me two days and a length of ironbark.”

— Nev Tarrant, Chiltern, VIC

What comes in the carton

🏠
The box
Fallen ironbark & yellow box, bark left on
🔽
Open-bottom entry
The only way in — they land low and climb
📏
Grooved interior
Tight crevices, back and belly both on timber
📝
Siting card
Aspect, height and the month to put it up

Six decisions, and a reason for every one

🌡
The Forty-Degree Margin
Above about 40°C a bat leaves a roost; near 45°C it stops coming out. Thick untreated hardwood holds the inside on the safe side of that line through a February afternoon.
🪵
The Mass Build
Weight is the feature, not a flaw. Dense ironbark takes half an afternoon to warm through and is still climbing when the sun comes off it. No vents, no coatings, no gimmicks.
🔍
The Cabinet Tolerance
The internal crevice comes straight out of forty years of felt-sealed specimen drawers. Tight enough that back and belly touch timber at once — the pressure that says settle.
⬇
The Underneath Entry
No front door. The box is open at the bottom and they climb up into it, exactly as they go up into a hollow behind a limb. The face gaps are structural only.
🌳
The Fallen-Ironbark Frame
Yellow box and red ironbark off his own block and the neighbours’ paddocks. Nothing standing is ever cut for it — only what is already down.
🚫
Nothing Treated
No CCA, no preservative, no oil, no paint, no zinc, no tar, no roofing felt. The deliberate opposite of every box he ever put a temperature logger inside.
From a wildlife ecologist
“The question people should be asking about a bat box is not how it looks. It is what the inside of it does at four o’clock on a hot afternoon. Thin ply on a west-facing wall can run several degrees hotter than a dense box of the same design, and the margin between a roost a bat will use and one it walks out of is small. Mass and untreated timber are unglamorous answers, and they are the right ones. Aspect matters just as much — give it morning sun and keep it out of the western afternoon.”
Dr. Marion Halliwell
Wildlife ecologist — two decades of hollow-fauna survey work, south-eastern Australia

Who puts one up

🦟 Mosquito control without spray🏡 Back sheds & garages🌿 Rural blocks & hobby farms🍅 Vegetable growers🐦 Wildlife gardeners🎄 A present for someone who has everything🎓 School & landcare projects🔭 Anyone who has tried a cheap box and got nothing

What you are actually paying for

  • Density, not thickness on paper Ironbark and yellow box are among the heaviest timbers in the country. That mass is the entire temperature strategy.
  • A measured crevice Built to the same tolerance as a sealed specimen drawer, because a quarter of an inch too wide and a bat reads it as open ground.
  • Bark left on Rough outside to climb, grooved inside to grip. Machined and sanded timber gives them nothing to hold.
  • Genuinely untreated No CCA pine, no decking oil, no stain. A bat spends its whole day pressed flat against that surface.
  • Built one at a time Hand-bored entry slot, hand-cut crevices, in one shed, by one person, with no more coming after these.
30-day return, no argument

If it is not right for you, send an email and it is sorted — no risk, no freight bill at your end. The only thing that cannot be replaced is the box itself: when the sixty-one are gone, there are no more.

Two things worth knowing. Every box is made from fallen timber, so no two are identical — bark, grain and colour vary, and that variation is the point rather than a fault. And timing matters more than most people expect: Australian microbats carry pups from about November, so a box that goes up in spring gets found and settled before it counts. One that goes up in January is an ornament until next season.

The details

Material Fallen yellow box & red ironbark logs on a pine backboard
Finish Bare natural timber, bark left on — no paint, stain, oil or preservative; weathers to silver-grey
Set contents 1 bat box with open-bottom entry & grooved interior · siting card
Dimensions (outer) Approx. 35 × 23 × 13 cm (13.8 × 9.1 × 5.1 in)
Roost Narrow grooved interior crevices, reached from the open bottom
Entry Open bottom — the only way in; they climb up into the crevices
Suits Crevice-roosting microbats — Gould’s wattled bat and the lesser long-eared bat above all
Colour Natural timber (single finish)
Siting North-east aspect for morning warmth, sheltered from the hot western afternoon sun, 4–5 m (13–16 ft) up, clear of lights, open flight line
Best time to fit Spring (September–November), before pups arrive
Care Almost none — a look from below once a year in late autumn. Never open an occupied box.
Made Hand-built by Nev Tarrant outside Chiltern, north-east Victoria
Availability Final batch — 61 only, no restock · 4.8 ★
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Forty Notebooks

A note from the shed:

Nev Tarrant was an entomologist with the Victorian agriculture department for thirty-eight years. Since January 1987 he has strung the same white sheet on the same dam bank outside Chiltern in the second week of every January and counted moth species by lamplight — forty notebooks, one for every summer. A hundred and eighty-six species in 1987. Ninety-four in 2006. Thirty-one this January, and four hours sitting out there to get them. For forty summers microbats worked the edge of his light. He built the first boxes after his granddaughter put the notebooks into a spreadsheet and turned the laptop round. Essential tremor in his right hand ended his specimen pinning in 2019 and is now ending the boring of the entry slot; there is no apprentice. Sixty-one boxes are stacked along the shed wall, and when those are gone there are no more.

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Free Shipping

Free shipping with tracking

- Delivery time: 3–5 business days
- Every box is hand-packed with a siting card
- Approx. 35 × 23 × 13 cm (13.8 × 9.1 × 5.1 in), fallen yellow box and red ironbark on a pine backboard
- Open-bottom entry with grooved interior crevices; untreated, unpainted, no zinc and no tar
- Fit it 4–5 m up on a north-east aspect, sheltered from the hot western afternoon sun
- 30-day money-back guarantee — just email info@backroad-goods.com

View full details

190+ Verified Buyers

Excellent 4.8

What people say about Nev’s bat boxes

Bat box on a corrugated-iron shed gable with droppings on the concrete below

Put it up on the shed gable in September, half expecting nothing at all. By Christmas there were droppings on the concrete underneath like grains of black rice. That is how you know they have moved in. I go out at dusk now just to watch them leave.

Verified

Graeme H., Wangaratta, VIC

Bat box above a back patio at dusk with microbats hunting over the lawn

We could not sit out the back past eight o'clock in January without being eaten alive. One summer after putting Nev's box up and the difference is night and day. I have not bought a can of anything since.

Verified

Robyn M., Toowoomba, QLD

Hands lifting the bat box out of its carton on a kitchen bench

You feel the weight of it the second you lift it out of the carton. Proper ironbark, real bark still on it, nothing like the flimsy ply thing we bought online years ago that warped in one summer. There was a handwritten note in the box.

Verified

Ian W., Armidale, NSW

A microbat clinging to the open bottom of the bat box on a garden post

Bought it for Dad, who has spent about fifteen years trying to get bats into a shop-bought box and never managed it once. This one had a tenant by February. He rings me every single time he sees it come out.

Verified

Sarah T., Mount Barker, SA

Bat box on a paling fence at dusk with a bat detector app on a phone

My son put one of those bat detector apps on his phone and we stood out the back the first warm night after it went up. Nothing for a fortnight, then all of a sudden the screen was going mad. He has not stopped talking about it since.

Verified

Col B., Launceston, TAS

Bat box on a garden shed wall with bottlebrush and grevillea in flower

Knowing the story behind it made it more than a purchase. It is the best-looking thing on our shed and it actually does something. The bottlebrush right beside it is full of birds all day and bats all night.

Verified

Rachel P., Bendigo, VIC

Microbats streaming out of the open bottom of the bat box at sunset

First proper warm evening we sat on the back step and counted six of them come out from underneath, one after the other, straight up into the sunset. My wife did not say a word for about a minute.

Verified

Dave K., Wagga Wagga, NSW

Bat box on a corrugated-iron shed gable with droppings on the concrete below

Put it up on the shed gable in September, half expecting nothing at all. By Christmas there were droppings on the concrete underneath like grains of black rice. That is how you know they have moved in. I go out at dusk now just to watch them leave.

Verified

Graeme H., Wangaratta, VIC

Bat box above a back patio at dusk with microbats hunting over the lawn

We could not sit out the back past eight o'clock in January without being eaten alive. One summer after putting Nev's box up and the difference is night and day. I have not bought a can of anything since.

Verified

Robyn M., Toowoomba, QLD

Hands lifting the bat box out of its carton on a kitchen bench

You feel the weight of it the second you lift it out of the carton. Proper ironbark, real bark still on it, nothing like the flimsy ply thing we bought online years ago that warped in one summer. There was a handwritten note in the box.

Verified

Ian W., Armidale, NSW

A microbat clinging to the open bottom of the bat box on a garden post

Bought it for Dad, who has spent about fifteen years trying to get bats into a shop-bought box and never managed it once. This one had a tenant by February. He rings me every single time he sees it come out.

Verified

Sarah T., Mount Barker, SA

Bat box on a paling fence at dusk with a bat detector app on a phone

My son put one of those bat detector apps on his phone and we stood out the back the first warm night after it went up. Nothing for a fortnight, then all of a sudden the screen was going mad. He has not stopped talking about it since.

Verified

Col B., Launceston, TAS

Bat box on a garden shed wall with bottlebrush and grevillea in flower

Knowing the story behind it made it more than a purchase. It is the best-looking thing on our shed and it actually does something. The bottlebrush right beside it is full of birds all day and bats all night.

Verified

Rachel P., Bendigo, VIC

Microbats streaming out of the open bottom of the bat box at sunset

First proper warm evening we sat on the back step and counted six of them come out from underneath, one after the other, straight up into the sunset. My wife did not say a word for about a minute.

Verified

Dave K., Wagga Wagga, NSW

Bat box on a corrugated-iron shed gable with droppings on the concrete below

Put it up on the shed gable in September, half expecting nothing at all. By Christmas there were droppings on the concrete underneath like grains of black rice. That is how you know they have moved in. I go out at dusk now just to watch them leave.

Verified

Graeme H., Wangaratta, VIC

Bat box above a back patio at dusk with microbats hunting over the lawn

We could not sit out the back past eight o'clock in January without being eaten alive. One summer after putting Nev's box up and the difference is night and day. I have not bought a can of anything since.

Verified

Robyn M., Toowoomba, QLD

Hands lifting the bat box out of its carton on a kitchen bench

You feel the weight of it the second you lift it out of the carton. Proper ironbark, real bark still on it, nothing like the flimsy ply thing we bought online years ago that warped in one summer. There was a handwritten note in the box.

Verified

Ian W., Armidale, NSW

A microbat clinging to the open bottom of the bat box on a garden post

Bought it for Dad, who has spent about fifteen years trying to get bats into a shop-bought box and never managed it once. This one had a tenant by February. He rings me every single time he sees it come out.

Verified

Sarah T., Mount Barker, SA

Bat box on a paling fence at dusk with a bat detector app on a phone

My son put one of those bat detector apps on his phone and we stood out the back the first warm night after it went up. Nothing for a fortnight, then all of a sudden the screen was going mad. He has not stopped talking about it since.

Verified

Col B., Launceston, TAS

Bat box on a garden shed wall with bottlebrush and grevillea in flower

Knowing the story behind it made it more than a purchase. It is the best-looking thing on our shed and it actually does something. The bottlebrush right beside it is full of birds all day and bats all night.

Verified

Rachel P., Bendigo, VIC

Microbats streaming out of the open bottom of the bat box at sunset

First proper warm evening we sat on the back step and counted six of them come out from underneath, one after the other, straight up into the sunset. My wife did not say a word for about a minute.

Verified

Dave K., Wagga Wagga, NSW

Bat box on a corrugated-iron shed gable with droppings on the concrete below

Put it up on the shed gable in September, half expecting nothing at all. By Christmas there were droppings on the concrete underneath like grains of black rice. That is how you know they have moved in. I go out at dusk now just to watch them leave.

Verified

Graeme H., Wangaratta, VIC

Bat box above a back patio at dusk with microbats hunting over the lawn

We could not sit out the back past eight o'clock in January without being eaten alive. One summer after putting Nev's box up and the difference is night and day. I have not bought a can of anything since.

Verified

Robyn M., Toowoomba, QLD

Hands lifting the bat box out of its carton on a kitchen bench

You feel the weight of it the second you lift it out of the carton. Proper ironbark, real bark still on it, nothing like the flimsy ply thing we bought online years ago that warped in one summer. There was a handwritten note in the box.

Verified

Ian W., Armidale, NSW

A microbat clinging to the open bottom of the bat box on a garden post

Bought it for Dad, who has spent about fifteen years trying to get bats into a shop-bought box and never managed it once. This one had a tenant by February. He rings me every single time he sees it come out.

Verified

Sarah T., Mount Barker, SA

Bat box on a paling fence at dusk with a bat detector app on a phone

My son put one of those bat detector apps on his phone and we stood out the back the first warm night after it went up. Nothing for a fortnight, then all of a sudden the screen was going mad. He has not stopped talking about it since.

Verified

Col B., Launceston, TAS

Bat box on a garden shed wall with bottlebrush and grevillea in flower

Knowing the story behind it made it more than a purchase. It is the best-looking thing on our shed and it actually does something. The bottlebrush right beside it is full of birds all day and bats all night.

Verified

Rachel P., Bendigo, VIC

Microbats streaming out of the open bottom of the bat box at sunset

First proper warm evening we sat on the back step and counted six of them come out from underneath, one after the other, straight up into the sunset. My wife did not say a word for about a minute.

Verified

Dave K., Wagga Wagga, NSW

See Nev's Last Bat Boxes

Frequently Asked Questions

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Got a question? Here's how to reach us.

Email us anytime at info@backroad-goods.com. We answer Monday–Friday 9am–5pm and Saturday 10am–3pm. Whether it is about siting, delivery or which wall to use, you will get a real answer from a person.

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Can I return it if it's not for me?

Of course. 30-day money-back guarantee. Put it up, live with it, and if it is not right for your place just email us — no risk to you and nothing to send back at your own cost.

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How is it made?

Nev works fallen yellow box and red ironbark off his own block and the neighbours' paddocks — nothing standing is ever cut for it. The logs are stacked bark-on onto a pine backboard, the interior crevices are cut narrow enough that a bat's back and belly touch timber at once, and the entry slot is bored by hand with an old brace and bit. Nothing is treated, oiled or painted: a bat spends its whole day pressed flat against that surface.

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    Untreated Fallen Hardwood

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    Built by Hand in Chiltern