Last week a group of
Warwickshire Bat Group members carried out bat box checks as part
of the ongoing monitoring of boxes put up specifically to attract
the rare Barbastelle bat. Endoscopes were used to look in the
boxes, in order to minimise any potential disturbance of the bats.
(Jon holds a licence which allows him to do this, since disturbing
bats in their roosts is a criminal offence unless you hold a
licence to do so.) The majority of the boxes were unoccupied, but
some contained one or two pipistrelles. But finally our
perseverance was rewarded - one box did contain a Barbastelle and
the endoscope enabled us to get this picture of him up in the
box.
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| Pipistrelle in a bat box |
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| Barbastelle in a bat box |
Almost all of the bats we
saw in the boxes were awake, which is a worrying feature of this
Winter. It's not been cold enough for bats to go fully into
hibernation, but since the weather isn't warm enough at night for
there to be many (if any) insects flying, bats that are awake risk
using up their fat reserves before Spring and may die before the
insect populations are sufficient to allow them to feed.
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| Non-invasive checks |
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| Group members with endoscope |
