Nature Notebook

Common pipistrelle © Tom Marshall

Brilliant Bats

As Halloween approaches and thoughts turn to creatures of the night, let’s bust some myths about our flying mammals...

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Worcestershire Wildlife Trust @WorcsWT t worcestershirewildlifetrust G worcswildlifetrust.co.uk w Adding their ‘wool’ to a cauldron along with eye of newt and toe of frog won’t provide magic. Bats don’t turn into Dracula. The saying ‘blind as a bat’ isn’t true and they won’t get caught in your hair. Our lack of knowledge about these mysterious creatures that emerge as the sun sets has manifested in myths and legends that we’re more familiar with than the animals themselves.

Did you know, for example, that although they’re sometimes called flying mice, they’re genetically closer to humans than they are to mice? Or that common pipistrelles, often found in and around our houses, need to eat over 3000 insects in one night? Or that lesser horseshoes weigh about the same as a £1 coin?

One thing you might know is that bats use their hearing to hunt food by using echolocation. This means that they emit a sound and use the return of its echo to ‘see’ what’s ahead of them, whether it’s the movement of an insect (target) or the size of your head (avoid). Each species of bat calls on a different frequency so if you have an electronic bat detector you’ll be able to hear them and be able to work out which bat is which.

The need to eat 3000 insects per night might give you an indication as to how our bats are doing. 41% of our insects face extinction, largely because of loss of habitat and the increased use of pesticides. Combine this decline of food with the destruction of roosting habitats and you can see that bats are in trouble. Whilst many species of bat like nothing better than snuggling up in a hole in a mature tree come sunrise, others will be more than happy making use of space under the tiles on your roof or in crevices in your brick work. Fortunately, bats are legally protected so anyone who wants to re-roof a house, renovate an old building or chop down a large tree should arrange for a survey to check for the bats before starting work.

During summer, female bats need a warm place to raise their young – lofts and barns are often ideal. For bats to hibernate through winter, however, roosts need to have a cool temperature that remains constant and is protected from fluctuations in outside temperatures – disturbance during this phase can be fatal for bats – so cellars, caves and even defunct icehouses on large estates are often used.

Although many of our nature reserves have plenty of natural roosting spaces for bats, we erect bat boxes in many places to help supplement these. You can also help bats at home – from providing plenty of flowers, shrubs and trees that attract insects to leaving space for them to roost on your house or putting up bat boxes under your eaves. Why not check out the wildlife gardening pages www.worcswildlifetrust.co.uk/ wildlife-gardening of our website for inspiration? n

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