Bat Walk

After a very wet rainy start to Friday 28th August, the evening brightened up and we had almost clear skies as we met up at 8pm for the bat walk at Caldy Nature Park.  18 people from the Friends joined us for the walk. 

We were met by Iona from RECORDS and Sally from Chester Zoo.  After a brief round of introductions, Iona gave us a safety briefing and Sally showed us how to use the bat detectors, which were then handed out.  She explained that bat echo locate at frequencies ranging from 20-60kHz depending on the species.  We set our detectors at 45kHz,  this is the frequency that pipistrelle bats echo locate at. This was the species we were most likely to encounter in CNP. 

We set off and within 30m of our walk we already heard the clicking sound of bats and as it wasn't dark yet we were able to see the tiny bats whizzing pass above us. They fly incredibly fast, but thanks to the blue sky we were able to see them silhouetted as they flew around . 

Our walk continued past the blue bridge towards Pam's pond , where once again we were able to detect bats.  (We were unable to see them feeding insects off the surface of the water, which some species are known to do).   We continued round the park, detecting bats at various locations.  We were able to hear the difference between an adult and a juvenile  echo locating. Apparently the youngsters need to learn how to do this. A bit like a child learning to speak.   

Throughout the walk Sally continued to give us fascinating facts about the life of bats found in the UK. 

 Arriving back at the blue bridge we found a couple of bats , which thanks to the path lighting we were able to see as they flew around searching for insects.  It was a magical end to an interesting evening.  We returned to the car park around 10pm. 

 The bats we detected were the Common pipistrelle and the Soprano pipistrelle, plus others that I can't recall.

 Bettina.