The only direct contact I’ve ever had with a bat was when I worked in Woolworths and one day a live Long-eared Bat turned up, exhausted, in the pick ‘n’ mix.
How it got into a high street store in full daylight remains a mystery, but I was known as the ‘wildlife boy’ and so I got called over.
I picked it up, put it in a cardboard box and took it home, not banking on the fact that it would squeeze out between the staples and end up flying around my bedroom. (If that happens to you, by the way, don't do as I did but call the Bat Helpline!).
Apart from that, my only experiences of bats are those I see as flickering silhouettes across the dusk skies, but every sighting is still exciting.
So it has been thrilling to find that my new garden is visited every evening by small bats. Usually there is just one, but occasionally I see two at one time, (although of course it is impossible to gauge whether in fact there is a stream of several individuals passing through).
My bats love feeding in the lee of the larger trees, and in particular they concentrate on circling the new glade I’ve cleared and filled with cornfield wildflowers.
I presume they are some kind of pipistrelle, of which the UK has three species. But a couple of weeks ago, I was watching them when suddenly a much larger bat appeared.
Whereas the smaller bats have the wingspan of perhaps a robin, this one appeared to be the size of a blackbird. The wingbeats were much slower, so that I could make out the scalloped outline of the wings. But its flight speed was incredible – it appeared to cover 50 metres of airspace in just a couple of seconds.
It was like having Batman pass over!
Bats are notoriously difficult to identify in flight, but I’m pretty certain with this one. There are only three very large bats in Britain, and only two are at all common – the high-flying, Swift-like Noctule and the lower-flying Serotine, which is a southern speciality.
So, after several more sightings in the last fortnight, I’m pretty sure it is the latter, which is thought to breed and sleep almost entirely in suitable old buildings.
I like to always adorn my blog with my photos, but on this occasion there is no hope of me getting even a blurred shot. So I’ll leave you for today with a photo of what I think it may be feeding on – as I see these flying over the garden most nights too!
And if you are having bat experiences in your garden, do share them.
If you want to drop by my RSPB wildlife gardening blog, it is updated every Friday, and I'd love to see you there - www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/hfw
I hope you have your bat boxes up or gaps for them to get into your eves. With a garden full of insects they'd be fools not to move in.
Our Pipistrells have returned to their summer roost in our eves and the brown long eared bat is still in residents in the barn.
Do you know anyone with a bat detector? They would be able to positively ID both species for you.
Build it and they will come.