Bats

 There are around 8 species of bat commonly found in Cumbria and 15 or 16 in. the UK. By their very nature bats are difficult to photograph but there are plenty of ways of detecting their presence. We have bats roosting in trees round about. One year we had bats roosting in our attic. There is also a roost behind a board above a window in a downstairs room. If you don't actually see the bats a give away sign that they are about is a pile of faeces below the exit hole from their roost. The images below show faeces on a window ledge and the exit hole behind a bit of boarding where the roost is.

As dusk approaches we often see the first bats of the evening hunting around the garden. It is very difficult to identify these dark fast moving shapes as individual species but fortunately technology comes to the rescue. The photograph below shows a little red "gizmo" that plugs into my phone.

Bats use echolocation to navigate by and this device allows the phone to convert the inaudible sounds into audible sounds and can show a visual representation of this in the form of a sonograph.  The software within the programme can then use algorithms to identify a likely match for a species with that sonograph. This works pretty well although one has to interpret the results with care.

Around the house the most common three bats are pipistrelles, soprano pipistrelles and noctules.

The sonogramme differentiates between the species  on the wavelengths of the calls.

This characteristic shape at around 55kHz is a soprano pip. Typically these emerge between 20 and 30 mins after sunset. Like most bats they navigate according to linear features and will follow hedge lines etc.

The above image is typical of the common pip at around 46KHz with a typical "hocky stick" shape to the sonograph. These bats emerge at about the same time as the soprano pips.

There are a variety of ways of attracting bats to your garden and flowers that attract moths will keep bats happy. There are also a number of artificial bat roost boxes that will give them somewhere to roost. I am showing images of one I have just put up in my garden and another put up in Kirkby Stephen along the river where there are Daubenton bats.

Diary

Went for a walk in the Howgill Hills yesterday starting at Cauldron Spout and climbing Yarlside (its great that these Viking place names still survive). A very blustery day. Some frogspawn in puddles by the side of the track at low level (it was further advanced than the spawn in our pond). On the River Rawthy I saw dipper, grey wagtail and a pied wagtail. I am showing a photo I took of the pied wagtail as I haven't posted one of these yet and I also show a photograph to show what the landscape is like there. I think the highest I climbed was about 630m.

At the higher levels I saw a peregrine falcon and later 5 ravens.

Last evening I looked for bats but it had just started to rain and none were about. I also read that by shining a torch into the pond at this time of the year I might see newts active but I failed to see any of them either.

Camera traps unproductive. A wood mouse and the farm cat!