Bat Group Talk - Moth Survival techniques to combat predation

A talk by David Brown at Brandon Marsh Nature Centre.

This talk will cover a wide range of survival techniques used by moths to avoid predation including camouflage,disruptive wing markings, warning colours...aposematic colouration,mimicry and polymorphism.. Specific species which have adapted their behavioural patterns to avoid bat predation will be highlighted.

David Brown is the Warwickshire County recorder for The Larger Moths and author of "The Larger Moths of Warwickshire". A freelance lepidopterist conducting courses throughout the British Isles for The Field Studies Council, Adult Residential Colleges Association , various Universities and Wildlife Trusts. An active field worker David has travelled all over the UK during the last 40 years and has studied all the British larger moths and their life histories.

Everyone welcome! 

£3 for Warwickshire Bat Group members or £4 for non members

Thursday, 16 January 2014 

19:30 - 21:30

Out with the old... ...and in with the new!

After more years than I care to mention, and more than a year in the making, we have a new website!

Some of the features of the new site such as the updated events list and this news page have already been previewed on the old site, but here they are as they were meant to be seen. We have tried to give the site a more modern look and feel while providing clearer access to all the information. We have expanded much of the information about the bat group itself and what we do while retaining much of the material from the old site.

We hope you like it!

Lesser Horseshoe survey results

On the first night of survey we counted a total of 44 bats.  On the second night, when rain was threatening, we only had 22 bats emerging. Last year we had a peak count of 52 so we are a few down but still maintaining roughly the same colony size.

Great weather for counting lesser horseshoes

Great weather for counting lesser horseshoes last Saturday with a net count 0f 44 bats.

Using bat boxes to monitor woodland bat populations

To those of you who didn't make it to the talk on Friday, you missed another great one. Hannah Bilston from North Bucks Bat Group had prepared an excellent presentation that had everyone wanting to know more. Questions were raised and well fielded throughout the talk and a lively debate followed at the end. Warwickshire members were agog (envious?) at the sheer number of bats the North Bucks group had got in their mist nets (including Natterers and Bechsteins). And apparently there are more results that she didn't have time to tell us about, and plans for further 'experiments' with the bat boxes, so maybe there will be a sequel...

This was the last of the planned Winter talks, so your newly elected committee will be planning some activities for the summer.

Using bat boxes to monitor woodland bat populations - A talk by Matt Dodds and Hannah Bilston

While it’s pretty obvious that bats use woods, there is currently no widely accepted approach to monitoring the populations of woodland bats which is practical, repeatable and accurate. But without accurate population monitoring, conservation decisions rely largely on guesstimates – albeit based on an understanding of bat ecology.

With this in mind, North Bucks Bat Group set out 10 years ago to try and develop a monitoring approach based on several bat box projects in North Bucks and Oxfordshire.

Over that time, they have gathered a wealth of knowledge and experience and in this talk Matt and Hannah will be sharing their fascinating and sometimes surprising findings about bats’ use of bat boxes in woods.

Date: Friday 19th April 2013
Time: 19:15

Place: The Barn, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, Brandon Marsh CV3 3GW
Price: £3 for Warks Bats Group members, £4 for non-members

Please note, the talk will be preceded by the Group’s Annual General Meeting. Non-members will not be allowed to vote, but are welcome to listen.

Bat Care by Morgan Bowers

We had another well attended evening for a very interesting and informative talk about bat care from Morgan Bowers of Birmingham & Black Country Bat group - brumbats.org.uk

The talk included somed live bats, Morgan with a pipistrelle and Jackie with a whiskered.

Bat Group talk - Bat Care by Morgan Bowers

Assessing Potential Bat Roost Features In Trees

Bat Group members, friends and family, were treated to a fascinating Talk by Henry Andrews on Thursday 21 February about the range of different hidey-holes that pesky little creatures like bats choose to use as their roost sites.

Henry has climbed and investigated in the region of 500 trees and, using this wealth of experience, has compiled a key which attempts to classify the main potential tree roost features and the different species of bats they are likely to support.  

Henry explained how tree cavities are created and how to recognise them from external features.  Importantly, he has compiled a dossier of data which reveals that different shaped cavities are exploited by different species of bat – the selection is far from random!  What’s more, the shape and physical form of tree roost cavities bear a remarkable similarity to the shape and physical form of roosts in buildings.

Amazingly, Henry has made all the material available as a free download from the web; you can find it at http://www.aecol.co.uk.  He describes the key as work in progress and would really appreciate any information people have about any tree roosts they have come across so that the key can be added to and further refined.