Dear Readers, on Saturday we went on a Bat Walk in Coldfall Wood, with Cindy Blaney, bat expert and ecologist. As Friends of Coldfall Wood, we’ve been organising this walk every year for about a decade. We usually run two events, one for families with small children, and one for adults and older children, and they are always well-attended – there’s something about walking around the woods at night that gives one a whole new perspective, and it’s always good to see the bats. Coldfall is home to Pipistrelles and some Noctule bats. We normally see them above the wet woodland, where they flitter around catching mosquitoes, and even if we don’t see them, we can hear them using the Bat Detectors that Cindy provides.

Common noctule (Nyctalus noctula ) Photo By Mnolf – Photo taken in Rum, Austria, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=872955

Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) Photo By Drahkrub – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8802172)

At this point, I should say that we have never not seen bats in the wood. As we wander around, trying to avoid tripping over logs or falling into ditches, we start to hear the distinctive clicks of the Pipistrelles on our bat detectors. If we’re very lucky, we might even hear the deeper, slower sounds of a Noctule on the playing fields behind the wood.

This short film shows a bat detector picking up the calls of a Pipistrelle…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swFxJOcV5h0

…and this is a Noctule feeding over water.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1413233189327497

Now, we did pick up some Pipistrelles, but we didn’t see a single bat, and as it got darker even those  bat sounds disappeared. Cindy speculated that because it has been so hot and dry, there are fewer insects in the wood – many places in the wet woodland are pretty much dry. When the bats emerge in the evening, therefore, they head out as quickly as possible to see if they can find food over more guaranteed sources of food, where there is still water – some bats can travel as far as 25 kilometres in an evening. I’d be interested to know if there’s been more success in places such as Alexandra Palace, where there’s a lake, or some of the other local water sources.

It was a disappointment not to see the bats, but it does remind me that when you spot a wild animal, it’s a privilege, not a right. And I’m off to see if I can find some bat boxes for the garden. There’s a small water source here, so it should provide at least some food. It feels as if our wildlife has never needed us more.

So, Readers, how are the bats doing where you are?