This week, to celebrate Make Your Nature Count, we'll be spotlighting some of the special creatures we're asking you to look for in your gardens and parks. Today it's all about bats.
Now is a good time to look out for bats in your garden because they are most active during the summer. Bats are the only UK mammal that can fly, and they do it with style! Look for them showing off their flying skills at dusk as they zoom, twist and turn through the air hunting insects.
There are 18 species of bat in the UK, although you'll probably only spot a few of these. Any bats in your garden are probably members of the pipistrelle family. Pipistrelles are small but they have a big appetite – one bat can eat up to 3,000 insects each night.
Where do bats live?
Bats, like the Wombles, live in roosts underground and overground. They're most commonly found roosting in trees, buildings and caves. Bats move roosts at different times of year as the weather changes. During the summer they need a warm, snug “maternity roost” to have their babies. During the winter they look for a cool, secluded place where they can hibernate in peace.
If you think there are bats roosting in your house, the Bat Conservation Trust offers lots of really useful advice and information.
You can see them – you just can’t hear them
Bats look for food at night using echolocation. This means they emit calls at a high frequency that humans can’t hear. They wait for the calls to hit an object and listen to the echoes. They can tell from the echoes where and how far away objects are. The only way humans can hear bats is with a bat detector – my colleague Katie had a go with one and it turns out that bats sound like wet slaps.
Bats are in trouble
If you do see bats you're very lucky because they are becoming increasingly rare. Their roost sites are being chopped down, filled in or demolished. They are easily disturbed by building works and there are fewer insects for them to eat.
If you’d like to welcome bats to your garden, we've got lots of free tips for wildlife friendly gardening. Once you attract insects you'll bring in hungry bats to hoover them up! You could also consider putting up a bat box.
Enjoy Make Your Nature Count - and keep your eyes to the skies!
Thanks Jenni, what a fascinating comment. How lucky you are to have so many bats sharing your house and garden!
How nice to be reminded of our bats! I have a nursery roost of common pipistrelles in my roof, a small group of soprano pips in the trees behind and one or two "loners" in various places like the conservatory!
I have found one fact that usually surprises people is that they live so long - they have been recorded at 20 years old. Data is difficult to collect as a scheme many years ago to ring them proved to affect them adversly and was discontinued but there is some evidence to suggest that they do have long term relationships - one pair I believe were ringed on the same night then recaptured together again several years later. They also become "tame" very quickly if you have to nurse them which makes releasing them a bit hard if you have to keep them more than a fortnight or so.
I love bats and do recommend volunteering with your local bat group!
Jenni
God gave us two ears and one mouth for a very good reason!