People in Toronto wondering about mysterious black boxes spotted around the city

Strange dark boxes perched high on stilts scattered around Toronto's green spaces have been confounding passing residents lately, many of whom have taken to social media to question the unfamiliar structures that seem to be popping up in more places.

Anyone looking at the installations would be tempted to say they appear almost like birdhouses, an assessment that is pretty spot on — although these handcrafted homes are not for the city's feathered friends, but for another of our airborne critters.

People have been inquiring about the bat boxes on local community Facebook Groups such as Beauty of the Don. 

Bat boxes are just one of the habitat restoration projects from the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), which has a mandate to mitigate habitat loss and fragmentation perpetrated by humans.

Part of this work includes the addition of features like perching poles, brush and log piles that "mimic natural habitat conditions," and nesting boxes for various types of wildlife.

The narrow, dark wooden contraptions are for bats specifically, and are termed "bat rocket boxes."

In a recent Instagram post about the adorable little houses, TRCA explains that "there are eight native bat species in Ontario, with half of them endangered due to white-nose syndrome and habitat loss."

Staff add that they installed a total of 30 additional bat rocket boxes this spring alone in the most recent stage of the authority's ongoing bat program, which also includes "monitoring bat echolocation sounds to understand their presence and ecology better."

Bat breeding season takes place this month and next, so next time you're wandering a wooded area in and around the city, you may want to look up to see if you can spot any of the creatures making these bat boxes their home.