Spotted bats in the garden last night

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fabindia
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Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by fabindia »

About 10:00 last night, I was out locking up the hens and spotted a couple of bats flying round the garden.

We are pretty urban where we live, so I was wondering are bats more common than I thought? Do any here regularly see bats in an urban setting?
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Trev62
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Re: Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by Trev62 »

It seems to be the other way around here, living out in the sticks so to speak, we only see the odd couple of bats flying around at night when I would have expected to see more.

A long time ago I remember going on an evening bat walk around a place called Danes Dyke in East Yorkshire where the Walk Leader had a machine that detected and identified bats by the noises they made. Interesting walk even though you actually saw nothing!

This is one of the bats we have here, it is surprising how soft their fur is and the texture of their wings.

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Richard
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Re: Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by Richard »

That's good!

There's an App for Bat noises and recording etc. Forget what it's called though !

There's a few round here, live in the Barn I think. I put a Bat Box up Summer 2015 but none have taken residence yet.

Front of house, about 3 years ago..

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Meanqueen
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Re: Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by Meanqueen »

I have seen a couple of bats swooping around the back garden close to the house. Don't know where they live.

I once found an injured bat, think the cat might have got it, it's delicate wings were full of holes. I found a bat rescue in Lincolnshire, and they came out to meet me half way to take it in. I rang a week later to see how it was doing. They said it will never be let loose because it couldn't fly, but it was ok, and would be kept within their rescue until it's natural death. Are they protected in Bulgaria, as they are here?

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fabindia
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Re: Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by fabindia »

Meanqueen wrote:Are they protected in Bulgaria, as they are here?


An interesting question.

There were once just fields out the back where I live that have been built all over by a big national house building company. What really cheeses me off is that the local council makes them do an environmental impact survey that seems to then get totally ignored when they come actually to build. The hedgehogs, robins, rabbits, peasants and even the foxes (I know and I keep hens and have lost hens to them - love them or hate them) are all struggling.
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Re: Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by Trev62 »

Meanqueen wrote:Are they protected in Bulgaria?



From the Bat Research and Conservation Centre website.

"Biodiversity Conservation. Bulgaria has a uniquely high diversity of bats. Out of the 35 species established in Europe, 33 species are known to inhabit Bulgaria. All bats are strictly protected under the Bulgarian and the international legislation"

Problem here is most laws (especially outside the main towns and cities) are often open to local interpretation or just ignored. A "shoot anything that moves" mentality still exists within many of the hunting fraternity, birds of prey being prime targets. Villagers here still keep their own livestock so anything considered a threat is quickly removed.
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HedgeHugger
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Re: Spotted bats in the garden last night

Post by HedgeHugger »

I used to live in a house in the middle of a housing estate in Cardiff. We had loads of bats flying around.
Quite sure some must have been roosting in the attic or under the eaves as they would fly out from the corners of the house. Never saw them in the attic itself though.
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