Regular readers of the revelations I occasionally reveal here will know that bat-work (and especially professional bat-work) is governed by a capricious, malicious, devious and mischievous bunch of bat-gods, who derive much pleasure from toying with us, like a cat toys with an unfortunate mouse (Ignore the gods of bat-work at your peril).
You may also have heard that, when a bat-worker snuffs it we may hope to be swept up by a scruffy-pipistrelle-standing-in-for-a-valkyrie and taken to the bat version of Valhalla, where the gods of bat-work will do their dodgy best to emulate the feastings halls of Norse heroes (Further news from the gods of bat-work).
But what happens to bat-workers who fall under a bus, but have angered or disappointed the gods of bat-work, preventing entry to the chiropteran Valhalla? What happens to those who have not kept up their Bat Conservation Trust subscription or even - I hardly dare say it - never joined at all? If the bat-gods ever heard you use terrible utterances such as "It's only a common pip" or criticise the level of bat activity on your survey, then bat-worker Valhalla is not where you'll be going, my friend.
There is a deep, dark and terrible place where the gods of bat-work send expired bat-workers whom they consider deserving of terrible vengeance and suffering. In homage to the vision of hell in Dante's "Inferno" they have created five squircles of hell for you to suffer in. They should, of course be circles, but have you ever tried to draw a circle with just a wing to hold the pencil? Also, Dante's vision had nine circles, but like all aspects of wildlife conservation, the bat-gods are working to a tight budget.
The first squircle of bat-worker hell seems innocuous enough. You'll be ushered to a comfortable, ergonomic swivel-chair before an enormous desk. When you open the top-end lap-top upon it your favourite bat call analysis software will be loaded, ready for you. But when you analyse the calls you find they are all Pipistrelles with a peak frequency of 50kHz, or Myotis calls with those subtle characteristics nicely jumbled (as they so often are in real life). In fact, every call you look at will be cryptic or confusing and, when you open the desk drawer in search of helpful books by Messrs. Russ or Middleton you will find nothing. And then you'll discover there's a deadline...
In the second squircle of bat-worker hell you will also have a nice lap-top and a mobile phone too. You will soon receive emails and phone calls from lots of cheerful people, all of whom really want to commission you to survey their enticingly interesting property. "This can't be bat-worker hell", you think. "I must have been sent to the wrong place, by mistake". But then they all say variants of the same fatal phrase "I've looked in the attic and there aren't any bats". Your heart sinks, as you realise you are doomed to listen to that phrase, as though on a tape-loop, for all of eternity...
At first the third squircle of bat-worker hell seems like you are participating in a normal sunset bat emergence survey and perhaps you begin to relax, thinking the worst is over. Then you hear them approaching and in a few moments the first of an ever-growing phalanx of grubby, snotty children arrive on a fleet of bicycles, scooters, skateboards and go-karts, all of them gathering around you. "Whatya doin?" "Whassat?" "Will bats eat my gran's cat?" "Do bats fart?" At first you try to answer their questions, but gradually the cacophony grows, you realise none of them are listening to you and as their numbers swell you feel yourself sinking to the bottom of a sea of inane chatter.
In the fourth squircle of bat-worker hell you find yourself strapped to a chair and forced to read a continuous flow of truly awful bat survey reports. You're subjected to a never-ending stream of Swallow droppings interpreted as bat roosts, barking mad conclusions drawn from minimal evidence, field mouse slaughter sites labelled as BLE feeding perches, site plans with inadequate surveyor positions, out-dated equipment used with pride, pointless job-creation sunset surveys of negligible suitability buildings, recommendations of illegal actions and so on, ad infinitum. When you feel you can take no more and begin to say "wibble" repeatedly, they bring out their pièce de résistance: a letter from a pest controller, explaining that he sat in the attic for half an hour and didn't see any bats.
The fifth squircle is where you realise you have definitely landed in hell and it is as bad as you might imagine. It is night and you are walking through the countryside, holding the bat detector of your dreams, but no sound comes from it. You walk for miles, but the detector remains silent. This is when you realise you are in a vision of the future. There are no bats - excessive use of pesticides, habitat loss, poor conservation funding and short-sighted policies have rendered them all extinct. And you're condemned to walk this bat-less land for eternity.
You should've paid your BCT sub, shouldn't you?
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