Making Hadleigh A 'Batty' Neighbourhood

Bats need looking after so it’s great that HEAT has set up a Bat Group in Hadleigh. Bats are fascinating creatures. They are the only mammals that fly and are more closely related to humans than they are to mice. As mammals, bats give birth to live young that feed on their mother’s milk. They have only one baby a year and can live up to 30 years. Bats hunt insects in the dark using echolocation. Our commonest species, the tiny pipistrelle, can fit in a matchbox, weighs only 4-6 gms and eats more than 3,000 tiny insects in a night. They are found in wetlands, woodlands, farmland, as well as urban areas and can only really be seen at dusk. You may have glimpsed bats swooping down catching insects on a summer evening. There are 17 bat species in the UK and they make up a third of all mammal species. By the way bats are not rodents and don’t nibble on wood, wires and other bits and pieces in buildings.

Bats are a vital part of our native wildlife and the ecology of the natural world. They tell us a lot about the state of the environment as they are sensitive to habitat destruction and the loss of nocturnal insects caused by humans. The pressures they face - such as landscape change, agricultural intensification, housing development, and habitat fragmentation are also relevant to many other wildlife species, making them excellent indicators for the wider health of the UK's wildlife, which is why we should be taking care of them.

HEAT, with the support of Benton End, has set up Hadleigh Bat Group with the goal of improving the environment for bats in Hadleigh. We have made a start by learning about bats from Suffolk Bat Group and building bat boxes to put up at Benton End and around Hadleigh. We will use detectors to survey bats in Hadleigh and put up more boxes as well as providing information so everyone can help look after bats by encouraging insects and creating roosts. How you can help bats:

•Lay on a banquet for bats and encourage flying insects by growing climbing plants, shrubs and flowers for pollinators.

•Have a pond or marshy area to support aquatic larvae such as small flies

•Allow a patch of lawn to grow long as a habitat for insect larvae

•Avoid using pesticides and encourage natural predators

•Reduce your light pollution – turn off garden lighting or dim security lights as these affect when bats emerge at night

Find out more about these ‘stars of the night’ and what you can do to help them on this RHS website www.wildaboutgardens.org.uk/WildAboutGardens

If you want to know more about Hadleigh Bat Group, contact HEAT via email on hadleigh.heat@hotmail.com and check out our website www.hadleighheat.org