Bat Group Talk - Gib Bats – the bats of Gibraltar by James Shipman

Gib-Bats is working on establishing which species is where and at what time of the year. They aim to use those data to advise the Government on what can be done to:

1. protect those sites
2. protect those habitats 
3. protect those species
4. encourage the species population to recover

James will talk about the bats of Gibraltar and what he has found, hopes to find and plans to do in the future

About James Shipman:
James  has a BSc (Hons) in Zoology and is Chair of Berks & South Bucks Bat Group. In 2013 he led a team of UK specialists in contacting the Gibraltar Museum, Dept for the Environment and the Gibraltar Ornithological & Natural History Society, to start a project looking at bats in Gibraltar.

Everyone welcome!

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

When: Wednesday 13th January 2016 at 7:30pm

Please note that we are using a new venue for this winter's talks -  Community Room, The Kenilworth Centre, Abbey End Car Park, Kenilworth, Warwickshire. CV8 1JP

Note that this season we are using a new venue
As this is a new venue for us this season, here are some detailed directions:If you're driving North through Kenilworth town centre: When you get to the clock tower roundabout take the second exit (straight on) and then, with the Holiday Inn on your left, turn right down the side of the Almanack pub. Follow the road round to the right and the Kenilworth Centre is on your left. There is a high mesh fence at the front.
On foot, with the clock tower at your back, walk through the gap in the shops by Lil Greens and the Kenilworth Centre will be in front of you.
Once in the building, the Community Rooms are upstairs (there is a lift).

Bat Group Christmas Social, Quiz & slides by Tricia Scott

 Come and join us for a social event, with food, drinks and a quiz (or two). ....and Tricia will share the photos from her trip to see bats in Hungary.

Everyone welcome!

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

Please note that we are using a new venue for this winter's talks -  Community Room, The Kenilworth Centre, Abbey End Car Park, Kenilworth, Warwickshire. CV8 1JP

Note that this year we are using a new venue
As this is a new venue for us this year, here are some detailed directions:If you're driving North through Kenilworth town centre: When you get to the clock tower roundabout take the second exit (straight on) and then, with the Holiday Inn on your left, turn right down the side of the Almanack pub. Follow the road round to the right and the Kenilworth Centre is on your left. There is a high mesh fence at the front.
On foot, with the clock tower at your back, walk through the gap in the shops by Lil Greens and the Kenilworth Centre will be in front of you.
Once in the building, the Community Rooms are upstairs (there is a lift).

Bat Social Calls - a talk by Dr Jon Russ

Bats not only use echolocation to navigate, but also use complex calls to communicate with each other.  There is a great deal of mystery of what these calls are used for, some are certainly important in courtship, but what else can these often melodic sounds mean?  Jon Russ will present a talk to help lift the veil.

About Jon:
Jon obtained a BSc (Hons) in Zoology from The University of Aberdeen, followed by a PhD at Queen's University Belfast on the distribution, species composition and vocalisations of Northern Ireland's bats. Jon is currently owner of Ridgeway Ecology Ltd, an ecological consultancy specialising in bats.

He is also the author of “British Bat Calls: A Guide to Species Identification”

Everyone welcome!

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

Please note that we are using a new venue for this winter's talks -  Community Room, The Kenilworth Centre, Abbey End Car Park, Kenilworth, Warwickshire. CV8 1JP

Tricia introducing Jon's talk

Note that this year we are using a new venue
As this is a new venue for us this year, here are some detailed directions:If you're driving North through Kenilworth town centre: When you get to the clock tower roundabout take the second exit (straight on) and then, with the Holiday Inn on your left, turn right down the side of the Almanack pub. Follow the road round to the right and the Kenilworth Centre is on your left. There is a high mesh fence at the front.
On foot, with the clock tower at your back, walk through the gap in the shops by Lil Greens and the Kenilworth Centre will be in front of you.
Once in the building, the Community Rooms are upstairs (there is a lift).

New membership leaflet

We've had a lovely new membership leaflet designed for us.

Why not download it and take a look? http://www.warksbats.co.uk/pdf/MembershipLeaflet.pdf .

Bat Group Talk - Kerb Crawling for Bats, Worcestershire Bat Group’s Adventures with iBats. A talk by Mike Glyde

In 2013 Worcestershire Bat Group became a member of the Bat Conservation Trust’s iBats programme which involves surveying as many of the roads in Worcestershire as possible using bat detectors attached to moving cars travelling at 15mph. A GPS is used to georeference the calls. Mike will present the results of the project which has been hugely successful and to date has covered more than 1000km of roads in the county and generated over 2262 bat records

About Mike: Mike Glyde is the current Chair and active member of the Worcestershire Bat Group. He worked as a Historic Environment Planning Officer for Worcestershire County Council before joining Amec as a consultant

When: Monday 12th October at 7:30pm

Where: Community Room, The Kenilworth Centre, Abbey End Car Park, Kenilworth CV8 1QJ
Note that this is a new venue for us.
As it's a new venue, here are some detailed directions:
If you're driving North through Kenilworth town centre: When you get to the clock tower roundabout take the second exit (straight on) and then, with the Holiday Inn on your left, turn right down the side of the Almanack pub. Follow the road round to the right and the Kenilworth Centre is on your left. There is a high mesh fence at the front.
On foot, with the clock tower at your back, walk through the gap in the shops by Lil Greens and the Kenilworth Centre will be in front of you.

Everyone Welcome

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

Friends of Abbey Fields bat walk

The annual bat walk and talk took place on Wednesday evening, July 8th. The weather was fine though not as warm as in the previous week.

The talk was given by Dr Jon Russ, a local bat expert and professional ecologist. Three of his colleagues from the Warwickshire Bat Group, Tricia, John and Julia, joined him to help people spot the bats on the walk, which was fortunate because a group of 35 people gathered in the corner of Abbey Fields car park at 9:15 pm to hear what Jon had to say.

Jon gave a short and informative talk about bats in general and those species to be found in Warwickshire. He also explained some of the reasons why their numbers have declined in previous decades, although the decline is being halted and may even be reversing for some species, thanks to the efforts of volunteer bat groups and the Bat Conservation Trust.

Jon gives an introductory talk in the car park

Jon and Tricia showed the assembled people two pipistrelle bats which are currently in the care of a local bat carer, having been found unable to fly. Although one was feeling well enough to eat one of the mealworms which Jon had brought along to show what is fed to bats in care. The normal food of wild bats is flying insects - so every time we heard a bat catch an insect, that was one less to bite us as we walked around!

After seeing the bats in the hand, we walked over among the trees by the old Abbey barn and gatehouse, where a number of the Bat Group's bat detectors were shared out, so that people could hear as well as see the bats hunting insects over our heads. These were Britain's smallest bats: common and soprano pipistrelles.

watching soprano and common pipistrelles feeding next to the Abbey Gatehouse

We then walked over to the lake in the hope of seeing Daubenton's bats but unfortunately there was a bit of a cool breeze and the Daubenton's didn't seem to have come out to hunt over the water, although we continued to hear pipistrelles there and as we walked around by the back of the swimming pool. We also saw and heard noctules, Britain's largest bat.

Looking for Daubenton's over the lake

Jon had been hoping to hear the rare Nathusius' pipistrelle by the lake, since some other members of the bat group had heard one earlier that week, but they didn't appear on this occasion.

Nathusius' bats were proving to be elusive but the pipistrelles still put on a fine show 

Bat Group car survey training

We're running a car survey training session on Saturday 16th May starting at 7:45pm at the Green Man, 68 Warwick Road, Kenilworth, CV8 1HS.

(http://www.emberinns.co.uk/the-green-man-kenilworth/)

We’re going to run through the equipment and methodology for about an hour and then cram ourselves into 1 or 2 cars to have a go at actually surveying for about another hour – so we should finish at around 9:30 - 10pm.