Right place, right time - Daubies in the moonlight

Despite owning all sorts of camera equipment, it's a given that, whenever I see something I'd really like to capture, I don't have any of them to hand. Happily the latest iphone has solved that for me. I must be honest - I bought the very latest model just as it came out, only because I needed a new phone anyway - trend-setter I ain't!

So there I was, in one of those "wow, look at that" moments and for once I had the means to capture it in my pocket. A group of around 10 Daubenton's Bats, hunting over a moonlit lake in Northumberland last week, showing their prowess at grabbing prey from the water's surface. 

Beautiful and impressive.

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Protecting and monitoring Scotland's bat hibernacula

This article was first published in the April 2015 edition of Recorder News,  the magazine of BRISC - Biological Recording in Scotland (www.brisc.org.uk)

As a bat specialist I am regularly asked why bats are protected when they seem to be quite common. To the uninitiated a bat is just a bat, but we have at least ten species in Scotland and whilst some are relatively common several are much rarer. 

Bat populations today are a fraction of what they were a few decades ago and, whilst the decline of some species appears to have slowed, recovery to previous population levels is a long way off. Even the Soprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus)and Common Pipistrelle (P. pipistrellus), our two commonest Scottish bat species and most often seen due to its habit of emerging before full darkness, face a plethora of threats.

What often isn’t recognised is the vulnerability of bats in our temperate climate. The females of most Scottish bat species are only capable of giving birth to one juvenile per year (Noctules are an exception, occasionally having twins). From the moment of birth the clock is ticking and time is against each tiny and utterly dependent baby bat. They have to grow at a prodigious rate from birth in June to be ready to fly around two months later. They then have to rapidly climb a massive learning: in around three months not only do they have to learn to fly with sufficient skill and agility to outwit and capture their insect prey but they need to do so with sufficient proficiency to rapidly build fat reserves in readiness for hibernation.  Insufficient fat will result in a failure to survive hibernation. 

It’s no easier for the adults. Females spent the summer devoting all their energy to hunting and feeding their young and now they too have a limited time to build fat reserves. Males have an easier summer but must work hard through autumn, attracting females to mate before they hibernate too.

Scottish bats live on a knife-edge at the best of times, so the negative effects of human activity are especially pronounced. Agricultural pesticides and development have reduced hunting habitat and prey availability. Timber treatment of older buildings has been harmful to attic-roosting bats (though the worst chemicals are now banned). Conversion of old agricultural and industrial buildings has removed many roosting opportunities and though legislation protects roosts in buildings from disturbance or destruction, implementation of the law varies from local authority to local authority. Fragmentation of habitat is especially problematic for bats: a single bat colony may use dozens of roosts for different purposes through the year and they need safe commuting routes to link these with each other and with suitable foraging habitat. Removal of hedgerows and tree-lines reduces their ability to commute freely between these locations. Sadly, deliberate destruction of bat roosts by indifferent or ill-informed people is far from unknown.

 A hibernating Brown Long-eared Bat (Plecotus auritus)

During hibernation bats enter a condition of deep torpor, reducing their body temperature to between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, slowing their heart rate to as little at 10 beats per hour and breathing perhaps once per hour. This reduces their use of stored energy to the minimum that supports life. But hibernation is not continuous and bats regularly wake, sometimes moving location. They may even hunt if the weather is warmer and Pipistrelles are occasionally seen in daytime, hunting for winter-flying insects in the midday sun. However arousal from deep torpor is expensive in energy and being forced to arouse by disturbance can reduce a bat’s ability to survive hibernation.

Conditions within hibernacula are critically important. Temperature must be steady, usually between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius. High humidity minimises water loss, reducing the need for bats to arouse to drink. It can take up to half an hour for a bat to arouse from deep torpor, so safety from predators is important, as is a lack of human disturbance. Hibernation tales place in differing locations, depending on the bat species. Noctules (Nyctalus noctula) and Leisler’s Bats (N. leisleri) tend to hibernate in deep tree holes, Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus sp.) often use crevices in buildings, cliffs or under loose tree bark which, whilst appearing relatively exposed, contain a suitable microclimate. Underground hibernacula such as caves, mines and tunnels tend to be used by bats of the Myotis genus - Daubenton’s (M. daubentonii), Natterer’s (M. nattereri), Whiskered (M. mystacinus) and Brandt’s (M. brandtii) - and Brown Long-eared Bats (Plecotus auritus).  

Man-made or natural underground sites with suitable conditions for hibernation are uncommon and increasingly under threat. In the Lothians disused limestone mines are well-used and are usually located at the base of quarries. Out of six mines known to be used by hibernating bats one is regularly disturbed by members of the public, one is unsafe due to vibration from an adjacent land-fill site and the landowner at another site recently had to be warned by SEPA to cease illegal landfill activity.

The quarry at Hope Mine, near Pathhead was filled in during the 1990’s and 2000’s. Access for bats was maintained via a grilled access hole. Airflow is critical in underground hibernacula: warm, stale air needs to be continually vented to maintain suitable hibernation conditions. At Hope a subsequent underground rock-fall and lack of maintenance of the air vent installed in the 1980s has caused the temperature underground to reach levels of over 14 degrees, rendering the mine unusable by hibernating bats.

There is a happier story at the remaining two mines. Middleton Upper Quarry near Gorebridge has recently been filled with over 600,000 tonnes of spoil from the Borders Railway. My company (David Dodds Associates Ltd.) worked closely with NWH Group, the owners and operators of the site. We used acoustic monitoring to assess which access tunnels were favoured by bats entering and leaving the disused mine workings. Under a Scottish Natural Heritage derogation license NWH staff used gabion baskets to create a safe access route for bats to continue accessing the mine after the quarry was filled in. Although the appearance of the site has changed considerably, a section of cliff face above the favoured entrance has been retained and stabilised, acting as a sign-post towards the entrance favoured by the bats.  The position of this entrance within the mine allows warm air to vent naturally, but an additional ventilation pipe has also been installed to ensure that temperature conditions remain suitable should that change. I’m happy to say that the first underground survey, during January 2015 showed that the mine continues to be used by Natterer’s, Daubenton’s and Brown Long-eared Bats.  We hope to use a similar approach to the adjacent Middleton Lower Quarry in due course.

Middleton Upper Quarry - an underground hibernaculum successfully safeguarded 

(photo courtesy of Birch Tree Images www.birchtreeimagesphotography.co.uk)

The National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) is managed by the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) on behalf of a partnership including BCT and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). This programme is an excellent example of citizen science at its very best. Throughout each year volunteers all over the UK carry out a variety of different bat surveys, from walked transects in open country or along watercourses, to counts of bats emerging at known roosts and searches for bats swarming at roosts at dawn. 

The slow and difficult search for hibernating bats

(photo courtesy of Birch Tree Images www.birchtreeimagesphotography.co.uk)

The surveys are designed to allow anyone to make a contribution, from those with virtually no experience of bats to skilled, licensed bat-workers. The NBMP website includes training materials and bat detector training courses are regularly run, to ensure as many people as possible take part. The NBMP data is collated and used to provide a statistically robust assessment of how bat populations are faring in the UK and in Scotland where sufficient data is available (more volunteer surveyors are urgently needed by the NBMP in Scotland), published each year as “The State of the UK’s Bats” and is widely used to inform and target bat conservation effort.  It also forms on of the UK Government’s biodiversity indicators.

One NBMP survey method which requires especial skill and experience is hibernaculum counts. These must be carried out by bat-workers who are specifically licensed for hibernaculum work, usually assisted by small teams of dedicated volunteers. This is not easy work. Underground hibernacula are often muddy, wet and physically demanding to access and to move around in. Safety equipment is paramount and surveyors need to be suitably trained and equipped to cope with conditions underground. Underground hibernacula may be natural caves or man-made structures, such as tunnels, mine-workings etc. The latter are usually disused and a continual assessment must be made as to whether a hibernaculum is safe to survey. Bat conservation is important, but human health and safety is always the priority.

Bats in Scottish underground hibernacula are usually found on their own, or very occasionally in small groups. Often they are dispersed throughout a large area and it is not unusual for a team of four surveyors to spend several hours searching to find only a handful of bats. Depending on the temperature and humidity conditions in a particular hibernaculum bats may be found on roofs or walls but often they are concealed within cracks and crevices, where they can find security from disturbance and a suitable microclimate. It is rarely possible to fully census bats within a hibernaculum, as many individuals may be invisible in deeper crevices or in areas unsafe to survey or in some cases mine-workings are simply too large to survey comprehensively. To ensure that data used by the NBMP is as robust as possible a repeatable survey method is used: as far as possible each year’s surveys will be done by the same number of people, with a similar mix of experience, spending a similar amount of time on the survey and following the same route through the hibernaculum. Although a long, hard survey may yield only a handful of records of bats, when combined with dozens of other surveys around the country and compared year-on-year useful population data starts to emerge.

Great effort is taken to ensure that disturbance of bats during a hibernaculum survey is kept to an absolute minimum.  Surveys are normally carried out twice each winter, with several weeks gap. Noise is kept as low as possible and bats are illuminated with torches only for as long as it takes to identify them. Bats are never normally touched or handled and in more confined spaces care is taken to avoid standing below hibernating bats or breathing on them, to avoid the surveyor’s body temperature from having an impact.

A hibernating Natterer's Bat (Myotis nattereri)

Identifying bats within hibernacula is challenging and requires a good deal of experience. Critical identification characteristics are often invisible without handling a bat or hidden by the crevice the bat is in. Surveyors are forced to use secondary identification characteristics such as fur colour, face and ear shape, size of feet etc., all of which are difficult to measure except on the basis of experience. Often it is only possible to identify a bat to genus.

It isn’t usually possible to identify individual bats, especially in hibernation when wings are tightly folded so that scars to the wing membrane cannot be seen. It is possible to ring bats using loose, horseshoe-shaped aluminium rings around the forearm, but this technique is used more sparingly than for birds due to potential impacts on the bats, so it is rare to see a ringed bat within a hibernaculum. In January 2010 I found a Daubenton’s Bat hibernating in a tunnel high in the Lowther Hills. This bat not only had a ring but also had most of one ear missing. “one-ear”, as she became known had been rung by researchers working on behalf of Scottish Natural Heritage, testing for rabies at Falls of Clyde nature reserve 35km away in August 2009.  Her injury seems not to have prejudiced her ability to hunt successfully, as I have regularly recorded her hibernating in the same place in the five years since then.

"One-ear" in hibernation. Her missing right ear and the ring on her forearm are clearly visible, as is condensation on her pelage.

It cannot be stressed highly enough how important hibernacula are for bats in Scotland. The need for sites with stable, low temperature and high humidity, combined with long-term security and lack of disturbance means that suitable sites are not common and it is common for bats to travel long distances to reach them. Finding and monitoring these sites is essential if we are to protect them and to measure variation in bat populations. Destruction of hibernacula is just one of many threats faced by our bats and protecting their ability to hibernate safely is critical for the long-term survival of these sensitive, vulnerable and oft-maligned animals.

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Swarming bats and shivering bat workers

Last September I spent a night outside a disused lead mine, with fellow bat-workers from Lothians Bat Group and Dumfries and Galloway Bat Group. Our goal was to find out whether any autumn swarming activity took place and to catch any swarming bats and examine them for ectoparasites. As a licensed trainer I would also use this as a opportunity for bat license trainees to gain some experience handling bats.

The site was high in the hills of Dumfriesshire and as the sun went down it was a beautiful, calm evening. The mine had two access points: a ventilator on the hill above us and an addit (a horizontal shaft) leading into the mine. We blocked the ventilator with rubble netting, to ensure that any bats inside the mine would leave by the main entrance and set up my harp trap across the addit (see "The Kitchen Table Harp Trap", Feb. 2008 and "Happy Harp Trapping", August 2008).

The harp trap in place across the mine entrance, with rubble netting at the sides and below, to prevent bats from flying round the trap.

Our hope was to find that the mine might be used by Myotis bats (which in Scotland means Daubenton's, Natterer's and Whiskered) as a swarming site. It has suitable characteristics to be used as a winter hibernaculum and swarming bats had been recorded there the previous autumn. Myotis bats tend to gather in the middle of the night during August, September and October and fly together. It's not clear why they do this, but mating is probably involved, as males tend to remain around the sites and females commute in from surrounding areas. It may also be connected with checking access to a hibernaculum or showing the site to juveniles. John Altringham's team at Leeds University have been researching this for some time, revealing some fascinating insights (see "Untold riches of swarming bats", April 2008).

Soon after sunset a bat flew into the trap from within the mine. It was an adult male Daubenton's Bat (Myotis daubentonii). Sadly (for me, not the bat) it had no ectoparasites, but provided good handling experience for two trainees. This was fortunate as it turned out to be the only bat that we caught...

The adult male Daubenton's Bat we caught, before the temperature dropped.

As autumn swarming is an all-night activity we started the evening sitting around in folding chairs, for all the world like a group of picnickers, with positive thoughts about spending the entire night there. Then it started to get colder....and colder. Soon it seemed like a good idea to erect the gazebo someone had brought. Then we added the side walls. Then the sleeping bags and blankets came out!

Dr Stuart Smith demonstrates the right equipment for bat-work in sub-zero temperatures.

Common sense told us we should give up. After all, with the thermometer at just 2 degrees there wouldn't be any bat activity would there? Actually, yes there was. Two bats had been swarming around the front of the mine fairly continuously since not long after the Daubenton's was caught and released, but were not tempted into the trap. From the bat detector we could see they were Myotis and their relatively faint calls made me suspect they may be Natterer's Bats (Myotis nattereri), but without catching them we couldn't be sure. Possibly they were males, awaiting females arriving from elsewhere. If so then they were destined to be disappointed...as were we!

Eventually, after many hours, when the thermometer descended below zero we concluded that the female bats had more sense than us, or the males, and had stayed home! We packed up and followed their lead. The next day I tuned in to the TV weather forecast in time to hear the forecaster say that the previous night was "the coldest September night for decades".

Important note: In the UK (and other European countries) it is a criminal offence to catch, handle or disturb bats without a license issued by the relevant SNCO (Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural England etc).

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A Most Peculiar Hibernaculum

Bats are very good at doing what they shouldn't do: ignoring the books and turning up in the wrong habitat or behaving in an unexpected way. That's part of the charm of working with them. There's a constant chess game in which we try to stay one step ahead.

Usually these unexpected things turn up one at a time and mercifully they are outnumbered by "correct" behaviour. Recently however, I have done some hibernation surveys at a site where the bats seem to specialise in intriguing behaviour.

The site is a tunnel about 500m long, accessed via a small hole, high in the hills of southern Scotland. The tunnel was hewn by hand from the solid rock, in order to carry water from one valley to the next, for industrial use. On end has long since collapsed, but the other is still accessible to those who know where it is. Despite it being far from habitat likely to be used by foraging bats, it seems to be well-known to bats and is regularly used by Daubenton's Bats (Myotis daubentonii) and Natterer's Bats (Myotis nattereri).




The tunnel is small, mostly just high enough for me to stand up in (I'm just over 6 feet tall) and between one and two metres wide. As there are few crevices, the bats tend to tuck themselves into angles in the rock, meaning that it possible to be fairly confident that the majority of bats will be seen during a methodical survey. This is a rare luxury: in many hibernation sites it can usually be assumed that, for every bat seen, there are likely to be more out of sight.




Because of this, I thought it would be interesting to place some temperature dataloggers within the tunnel, to measure the temperature variation at different depths. The dataloggers were in place for four weeks, during which there was a warm spell, followed by several days of very cold weather, accompanied by snowfalls. Despite this, a datalogger just 7m from the entrance (C on the chart) showed a temperature variation of less than one degree either side of 4.5 degrees. A second logger 100m from the entrance (B on the chart) showed a steady temperature of 6 degrees, never varying more than a tenth of a degree. A third logger another 100m in (A on the chart) showed similar consistency around 7 degrees. Hardly surprising then that the tunnel suits the bats well.








Water runs along the floor of tunnel throughout, but never more than a few centimetres deep and I can be quite confident that it rarely rises above that height. Why? because last week I saw a Daubenton's bat tucked into an angle in the rock less than 30cm from the floor. I have rarely seen bats low on the walls of other hibernacula, but here they have been seen doing this several times.

In January this year I walked through the tunnel, noting the various Myotid bats. almost 250m from the entrance was an especially small bat. I had to look at it for a few moments before the evidence of my own eyes registered: it was a Pipistrelle. Why on earth a Pipistrelle had chosen to hibernate so deep in an upland underground site is beyond me! Normally Pipistrelles hibernate in conditions with far less consistent temperature and humidity. I would love to have known which Pipistrelle species it was, but without handling it, it was impossible to tell.


Undoubtedly my favourite oddity at this site was a Natterer's, which had found itself a small crevice. Perhaps the bat would prefer it if the site had more crevices for them to crawl into, as at other hibernacula, because this bat seems to have decided it wanted to be in the crevice come hell or high water. It had managed to get it's head in and no more and there it had settled down to hibernate. It had it's backside stuck in the air and it's wings akimbo, looking for all the world as though someone had hammered it in with a mallet...



Regular reader of this blog will have heard this many times by now, but please be aware that it is usually a criminal offence to enter a bat hibernaculum in the UK without a licence issued by one of the statutory nature conservation organisations (NE, SNH, CCW etc). It is also extremely dangerous to venture underground without training. Blundering about below ground in winter is a great way to harm both yourself and hibernating bats. Sorry, but my sympathies are with the latter! If you want to take part in these activities, join your local bat group. What are you waiting for?

My website: plecotus.co.uk
Contact me: mailto:blog@plecotus.co.uk

Winter Bat Activity

We tend to think of winter as a time when bats hibernate and won't be seen again until spring. In fact hibernation is not as simple as that: bats do awaken at times and move around. Indeed, they are sometimes seen flying in the midst of winter.

This afternoon whilst walking the dogs I spotted a Pipistrelle foraging over the River Esk. It was flying round in circles in the clockwork flight pattern typical of the genus and occasionally dropping down to catch an insect. A feature of winter bat activity is that it happens in daytime, as the higher ambient temperature means there is a greater likelihood of catching enough insect prey to offset the energy costs involved in coming out of hibernation.

I tried unsuccessfully to interest the dogs in the bat, as I have an idea it could be rather useful to have a dog trained to listen for bat calls and alert me when there's a bat nearby. Unfortunately, my pair of canine delinquents find the command "sit" quite challenging, so they aren't likely to succeed in training as bat-dogs.


When I passed by later on at dusk the bat was still hard at work hunting and seemed to be having some success, despite the ambient temperature being only 3 or 4 degrees. I have heard several suggestions as to why bats occasionally feed during the winter. It may be that individuals have been forced out of hibernation because they have failed to build sufficient fat reserves to see them through the winter, but it seems more likely that fluctuations in temperature may cause individuals to take advantage of the opportunity to forage on insects which have become active.

Different bat species have differing requirements for hibernation. Here in Scotland Myotis species, such as Daubenton's (Myotis daubentonii) or Natterer's Bats (M. nattereri) seem to be particularly exacting, hibernating below ground in caves and mines which feature a steady, low temperature, low airflow and high humidity. They usually hibernate in crevices or ledges where the microclimate may be particularly stable.

Brown Long-eared Bats (Plecotus auritus) are less exacting. When found underground they tend to hibernate on walls or hanging from the roof and are often closer to mine entrances than the Myotids.

The least exacting bats are the Pipistrelles, which are rarely found underground, instead selecting relatively exposed holes and crevices, which are more likely to be influenced by changes in the weather. Whether there are differences between the two Pipistrelles is difficult to judge. As they are impossible to differentiate without handling, they tend to be lumped together in hibernation surveys.

Last winter I wrote about a castle where a group of Pipistrelles and a Brown Long-eared were hibernating in crevices within a cellar (See "Hibernating Pipistrelles", February 2008). The castle sits atop a hill and there is a constant breeze blowing through the cellar. Unsurprisingly, no Myotids were found hibernating there.

A hibernating Pipistrelle

Carol and Nigel Terry, our local bat carers noted that a casualty Pipistrelle kept through the winter in a cold room tended to wake up and feed every 10-14 days. It may be that Pipistrelle autecology makes use of winter foraging opportunities and that they choose hibernation sites which better allow them to respond to these opportunities.

My website: David Dodds Ecology

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Bat-workers & golf carts: be very afraid!

At this time of year there seems little for a bat-worker to do. Hibernaculum surveys are strictly limited, to avoid the risk of disturbance and there are only so many site visits one can do before running out of enthusiasm for assessing bat potential! These are the days when the mind wanders back to highlights of "real" bat work, before the onset of winter.

One such highlight last year was an autumn visit to a well-known golf and country club in the Borders to check and clean the bat boxes. A large group of bat-workers from Lothians and Borders Bat Groups assembled to go round the boxes, checking them for bats and recording the amount of droppings (an indication of how well each box has been used during the year).


I'm not entirely sure whether it shows trust or naivete, but we were allowed the use of a small fleet of golf carts in order to get round the course with our ladders. If you have never seen a conga line of golf carts, full of bat workers and equipment snaking across the landscape you have never known fear!


Fortunately we were accompanied by the course green keeper and one of his team, which probably helped curb the temptation to descend to the level of "Wacky Races". More importantly, it allowed them to see for themselves the great work they have done, making and erecting bat boxes around the course.

Annual bat box checks have several practical purposes. Firstly, the boxes can be cleaned out in readiness for the next year and any damage identified for fixing. Secondly, we have the opportunity to assess the extent to which each box has been used, providing data which shows the progress of the individual bat box scheme and, when combined with other schemes, a rough measure of how bat populations are doing locally. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, less experienced bat group members get an opportunity to get close to live bats. Many very active bat workers (including me) started off with bats, with the thrill of seeing a Pipistrelle in a bat box.


In South East Scotland it is extremely rare to find anything other than Pipistrelles in bat boxes (with some intriguing exceptions in recent months) and this site was true to that experience. In autumn boxes tend to be used by male Pipistrelles as the base for a mating territory and it is usual to find boxes occupied by either an individual male or by a male and a harem of females. Where boxes are grouped together it is unusual to find more than one occupied, as they would lie within the same territory. The droppings however, often reveal that other boxes have been used, either earlier in the year or in differing conditions, with bats moving between boxes to find optimum temperate conditions.

The course is home to some remarkable buildings and is known to be home to roosts of Brown long-eared Bats (Plecotus auritus), Common Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) and Soprano Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus). Best of all is a large maternity colony of Daubenton's Bats Myotis daubentonii). Although the roost was breaking up at the time of our visit, we were still able to glimpse a group of around 20 bats clustered together. I took the photograph below earlier in the year, when there were over 50 bats present, with a cluster of Nycteribia kolenatii bat-fly pupae clustered around (you can see them better in the lower picture).


It was a very successful day in terms of finding bats, recording useful data and giving people the chance to get close to bats. Best of all it was that very rare thing: a chance for bat-workers to get together in daylight!

Please note: handling or disturbing bats is a criminal offence without an appropriate licence issued by a statutory nature conservation organisation (Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural England, Countryside Council for Wales, Northern Ireland Environment Agency).

Most bat groups welcome new members and give them the opportunity to take part in events like this. To find your local bat group contact the Bat Conservation Trust

My website: David Dodds Ecology

An 1892 Bat-worker

As an ecologist whose first degree was in history, I have always had an interest in the development of natural history. I would love to have been one of those wealthy edwardian or victorian country parsons whose lives were devoted to natural history (whilst presumably paying a curate to take care of the religious stuff!) 

Last year I heard a talk about the use the Botanical Society of the British Isles makes of historical records in order to understand changes in the distribution of vascular plants. Some of their impressive database comes from the notebooks of victorian botanists and the voucher specimens they made, which are often still to be seen in herbaria. Other records are found by trawling old natural history books and drawing out biological records from descriptions of species and their distribution. 

Inspired by this I resolved to seek out any such data I could regarding bats in my part of Scotland. It took a while to find a suitable source of data: bats were not recorded anything like as much as vascular plants were, botany being a "suitable" occupation for those few Victorians and edwardians who had time to spare. However, I recently came across a copy of "The Mammalian Fauna of the Edinburgh District", written by William Evans in 1892. In it, Evans set out to record the distribution of mammals in Eastern Scotland between the Tay and the Tweed (a rather broad definition of "Edinburgh distict" by today's standards). He particularly wanted to record the distribution of bats and small mammals, as these were felt to be under-recorded at the time. Arguably then, Mr Evans was one of the first ever bat-workers in Scotland. 

There are some fascinating distinctions between the work of this dedicated natural historian and modern bat-work, but some remarkable parallels too. Not surprisingly, the methods used are utterly different and at times seem a little barbaric to a modern reader. In a day when bat detectors were still 6 or 7 decades away, the art of finding bats was focussed on roosts and upon seeing and catching bats in flight. Whereas today we consider it appropriate to make biological records based on seeing (or hearing) a bat and recording the salient characteristics, in an age when conservation was unheard of and probably unnecessary, the true scientist's voucher specimen was a dead animal. Evans described removing bats from roosts, catching them in flight using butterfly and fishing nets, plus some less savoury approaches. 

The Daubenton's Bat (then Vespertilio daubentoni, now Myotis daubentonii) seems to have come in for more of it's fair share of hasrh treatment: "During the summer of 1869 I observed a number of bats flitting above a still reach of the Esk above Penicuik, and one which I succeeded in striking down with a walking stick proved to be of this species." Three other specimens of this species were sent to him from the Dunbar area by a contact who, rather than battering them to death with a walking stick, chose the gentlemanly approach....and shot them! 

In another section Evans describes how impressed he was with the nimble flight of a Pipistrelle he watched, though his methods of evaluating this were a little rough by today's standards: "In June last I watched one for fully a quarter of an hour flying in the bright sunshine at Broomhall, near Dunfermline and was much struck with its activity and the facility with which it evaded stones and other missiles thrown at it." 

Lest you think too poorly of Evans, he also described caring for live bats (probably captures, rather than the sick and injured bats the modern bat-worker might deal with), in particular a Brown Long-eared Bat given to him by the gamekeeper at Dalkeith Country Park (where there is still a Brown Long-eared roost): "It delights in scrambling about the pictures, the window-blinds and even the chairs; and often settles on the floor, where it moves with considerable rapidity (indeed, it may almost be said to run), keeping the body practically clear of the ground. A more knowing little creature I have seldom seen; and, having discovered that there is sufficient space below the room-door for it to creep through, it's endeavours to overcome obstacles placed in the way of it's escape are most persistent and amusing." 

Aside from the very limited equipment Evans had available by modern standards, the victorian understanding of bat taxonomy was rather different. He describes there being 12 species of bat nationwide, whereas today we accept there are 16 or 17 (depending on your views about the Greater Mouse-eared bat's status in the British Isles). The most obvious difference is the Pipistrelle. We now know that there are three Pipistrelle species in the UK, whereas in Evan's day only one was known, the splitting of Common and Soprano Pipistrelles being still a century away. 

The most surprising thing about Evan's work and the thing for which he deserves to be remembered is the fact that, despite limited taxonomic understanding and huge limitations in method and equipment, compared with today, his description of the bat fauna of the area is remarkably in tune with what we know today. He described Brown Long-eareds as "by no means rare", Daubenton's Bats as "...locally at least, not uncommon" and Pipistrelles as "undoubtedly by far the most abundant and generally distributed." Ignoring the split of the Pipistrelle species, these three are the most abundant bat species in the region today. 

More impressive still is that he was remarkably accurate about the rarer species too. He described a record of Natterer's Bats from near Dalkeith (the two known roosts of that species in the Lothians today are in the Dalkeith area) and goes on to hypothesise that Whiskered Bats are likely to be present in the region too. They are, but there are only three modern records of them in the Lothians. In fact, his only shortfall was his failure to mention the Noctule, which we now know to be present in the Lothians. Whether they were present 117 years ago is a moot point, but it's only in the past decade that they have been identified in south east Scotland. Were they here in Evan's time? We'll never know. 

If you're interested in helping to put historical biological records to work, try visiting http://herbariaunited.org/atHome/ This project uses on-line volunteers to transfer information from thousands of old herbarium sheets onto a modern database. It's easy to do and rather addictive! 

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Happy Harp Trapping!

A couple of times this year I have described my Tuttle (or harp) trap, built with the intention of creating an effective trap for harmlessly catching live bats, but smaller and more versatile than the commercially-available traps. Cheaper too! (see The Kitchen Table Harp Trap, February 2008).

Back in May I described the trap's first outing, when it was unfortunately placed over a roost entrance which wasn't in use. (See A Bat in the Hand, May 2008). As the bat maternity season started soon after that I had to wait with gritted teeth for the breeding season to end, so I could find out whether the trap worked or not.

A couple of weeks ago Lothians Bat Group had a trip to a site in the Borders and I set the harp trap up at the entrance to a Daubenton's Bat (Myotis daubentonii) roost and waited with baited breath. With 8 or 10 people waiting to get a close-up view of the bats, I couldn't help dwelling on the fact that the wretched gadget had yet to catch a bat - talk about pressure!

The first 2 or 3 bats flew past the trap, finding ways around it or even through it, causing a sweaty brow on my part. However, this is always a problem with harp trapping at a roost, so after a little work closing the gaps with coats, twigs and anything else that came to hand my fingers were re-crossed.

I got involved in a conversation and missed seeing the first bat to be caught, but yes, a bat was actually caught. My week's hard work back in the winter wasn't in vain after all! It quickly became apparent that the plastic lining of the catching bag was too long, which slowed the bat in moving into the sides of the bag, where it could not get out. In all, twelve Daubies were caught and I was able to check several of them for parasites, watched by some Group members. At the same time, other members of the Group were able to gain some valuable bat handling training.

The trap in place at the Natterer's roost (the roost is in a crevice in the wall behind)

Now that I knew the bat worked I followed up with an evening at a newly-discovered Natterer's Bat (Myotis nattereri) roost in the wall of an old farm steading, where I needed to confirm how the roost was being used. Again, the trap did it's thing and I was able to catch five bats (although a sixth was caught as I was taking the trap down). With three adult females, a juvenile male and a juvenile female, I was able to conclude that this had been a maternity colony, with the young bats now flying and the trap had earned it's place.

A juvenile Natterer's Bat

Before I next use the trap I'll trim back the plastic lining. The only other problem that has come to light is that the legs are a bit spindly and wobbly. The trap is light in weight, so the legs don't need to be too strong, so I'll delay making any changes to that for now. But at last, eight months after building it, I know the trap is fully functional and effective.

Please note, everything described above was carried out under appropriate S.N.H. licences. Trapping and handling bats can be harmful to them if not done with the correct equipment and skills. To do so without a licence is a criminal offence.

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A Bat in the Hand....

...takes a great deal of work to achieve!

In company with a small group of people from Lothians and Scottish Borders bat groups I attempted to try out my new harp trap last night (see "The Kitchen Table Harp Trap", under February 2008).

The site was a ruined castle, set in a secluded valley in the Scottish Borders. "Ruin" is probably the wrong word, as the seventeenth century noble who set about building it never completed the job but, with massive stone walls up to 50 feet high, it really looks the part. Barrel-vaulted cellars with plenty of deep gaps and cracks in the stonework provide good roosting opportunities for bats. There are woods and a river close at hand, providing foraging opportunities for several bat speices and in the past we have trapped Natterer's Bats (Plecotus nattereri), Daubenton's (Myotis daubentonii) and Brown Long-eareds (Plecotus auritus).

Trapping bats is enjoyable, but there needs to be a valid scientific reason to interrupt the bats in their normal activity. On this occasion bats were to be rung as part of a long-running study of bats using sites of this type in the Scottish Borders. In addition, I was planning to remove parasite specimens as part of my studies into their distribution and host associations.

Two harp traps were put in place: mine and a slightly larger one, each covering the entrance to one of the cellars. There is an art to siting a harp trap: it needs to cover as much of the entrance as possible and gaps need to be filled as far as possible, to prevent bats flying round the trap. A tarpaulin, some leafy twigs and an old coat were pressed into service around my trap:

It was quite cold, dipping as low as 5 degrees centigrade after sunset and bat activity wasn't high, apart from the large numbers of Soprano Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) dispersing from their roost in a nearby farmhouse. Nonetheless, we caught four male Daubenton's, all of which emerged from one of the cellars. Frustratingly, it wasn't the cellar which had my trap at the entrance!

Two of the bats were recaptures and had been rung on previous visits to the site, but the other two were new and, as well as being weighed and having their forearm length measured, each had a tiny numbered aluminium ring slid onto it's forearm.

None of the bats had many parasites. This is often the case in spring, especially with adult males, which usually carry a lower parasite burden than females and juveniles. They are able to move between roosts to avoid parasite accumulation, whereas the females and juveniles are together in the maternity roost for several weeks each year, often with many other bats. I like to think that juvenile bats may also have similar personal hygiene issues to many human teenagers!

The picture above shows the fouth bat to be caught, who caught my interest as he had a tromiculid mite larva in his ear. The Trombiculidae are a large family of mites, including members of the genus Leptotrombidia, which parasitise bats for part of their life-cycle. Their larvae hatch within a bat roost, climb onto a bat and attach themselves, often in the bat's ear or on the forearm. There they take a meal, before dropping off the bat to become predators of other small arthropods within the roost during their nymph and adult phases.

I was particularly interested, as there are very few records of these parasites on British bats, partly because records of any bat parasites are rare and partially because they can be difficult to remove. Fortunately, this bat was quite placid and, with Carol-Ann (the "bat whisperer") holding him, I was able to paint the mite with a little isopropyl alcohol using a very fine brush, to make it release it's grip, and then remove it with fine soft forceps.

Once home I checked and have been unable to find any records of a trombiculid mite on a Daubenton's bat in the UK (unless anyone reading this knows better?), although that doesn't necessarily make it a rare species: probably just an under-recorded one. It will probably be a while before I am able to positively identify it to species: there are no field guides!

I haven't mounted the mite yet, but here's a rough and ready picture taken at x120. The larvae are usually a distinctive orange colour when seen on a bat. With their mouthparts buried in the bat, they look like tiny orange jelly beans.

As for the harp trap, it is still waiting to be christened with it's first bat. Watch this space...

Please note, trapping and handling bats without proper equipment, training and experience can be very harmful. Furthermore, in the UK it is illegal to do so without appropriate licences from Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales or the Environment and Hritage Service in Northern Ireland.

If you're interested in getting involved in working with bats, the best starting point is your local bat group: http://www.bats.org.uk/bat_group.php

A checklist of mites found on British bats can be downloaded here: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/acarology/saas/saasp/2003/saasp14.pdf

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Spring Has Sprung....

Three weeks ago I asked whether spring was springing yet, at least in terms of bat behaviour. We can safely say that Spring has now sprung. The chart below shows the night-time temperatures at Gogarbank meteorological station, near Edinburgh, since 1 April. It clearly shows that, after a brief blip at the start o last month, followed by a colder period, the warmer weather is now settling in.

(Met Office Data)

Last night Lothians Bat Group members returned to Blackford Pond and we found a big difference to the events of three weeks ago. For a start, we didn't have to tiptoe through hordes of amorous toads! Of more interest to us was the big increase in bat activity. At least 4 or 5 Daubenton's Bats (Myotis daubetonii) were foraging over the pond and finding plenty of invertebrates to eat. Above the footpaths were many Soprano Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) and one or two Common Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pipistrellus).

Whilst we were there, I was able to hook a frequency division bat detector up to a lap-top running Batsound software alongside the pond. Newer members of the group were able to see sonograms of the common species and compare them with the sounds, to help get a handle on the basics of bat call identification.

To give a flavour of the evening, here's a brief video clip showing two of the Daubenton's Bats over the pond last night. You can hear a heterodyne bat detector in the background.

We mustn't leave out the Pipistrelles: the most charming and delightful to watch of our native bat species. Here's a very short clip of a Soprano Pipistrelle feeding just before dawn this week, at another site in Edinburgh.

My website: plecotus.co.uk

Is spring springing yet?

When does Spring start? According to the Met Office, spring starts on 1 March, although the traditional start is the vernal equinox, on the night of 21/22 March. Here we are in mid April, so surely spring has started?

From a wildlife point of view, spring activity starts when the prevailing weather conditions permit, so in truth it's quite a variable thing, not just in terms of date, but geographically. The south of England is likely to experience signs of spring one or two weeks before they appear here in Scotland.

With some members of Lothians Bat Group, I went to Edinburgh's Blackford Pond after sunset, one evening last week. If you live in Edinburgh this is a great place to see large numbers of Daubenton's Bats (Myotis daubentonii) and Soprano Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) in the summer, and the group usually run a bat walk there every year. On this occasion we wanted to see if there were the first signs of bats emerging from hibernation yet.

With an ambient temperature after sunset of just 2.5 degrees celsius, it was questionable whether we'd see any bats at all, but what was probably a lone Soprano Pipistrelle passed by a couple of times and we watched one, and later two Daubenton's Bats feeding on the pond. There was very little food for them, so they were having to range over the whole of this large pond, to find enough flying insects to eat (they looked to be small Sedge Flies). With such a low temperature, it's possible that these few bats were some of last year's juveniles, desperate for food after the long months of hibernation.

So is it spring? Well, not really from a bat point of view, as it seems like the main population are still in hibernation. The graph below shows the night-time temperatures at the Gogarmor meteorological station, to the west of Edinburgh, since the start of April. As you can see, there was a brief peak of warmer temperatures at the start of the month, but it has been quite cold at night since then.

Having said that, there are other signs of spring. As we walked around Blackford Pond, we had to tread carefully to avoid a large number of toads, commuting towards the pond, in order to mate?

Since then I have also seen some discarded eggshell from what must be a very optimistic bird and last weekend, I watched a group of Brown Hares (Lepus europaeus), boxing and chasing each other: the so-called "mad march hare" behaviour, associated with the onset of the breeding season. This behaviour actually continues through to September, but is far more noticeable just now, whilst the grass is short.

Hopefully we'll get a spell of warmer weather soon, and we'll start to see more bat activity, as the adults move out of their hibernation sites and the move towards maternity roosts commences, ready for the breeding season around June. My bat detectors are charged up and ready...

My website: plecotus.co.uk

The Great Hibernaculum Hunt Revisited

A couple of times recently I've described the hibernaculum survey work I've been doing, together with several other members of Lothians Bat Group. We've been looking at potential hibernacula and sites with historical winter records of bats, in the hope of adding to our list of active hibernation sites.

The goal of all this work is to ensure that hibernacula - the most vulnerable of all bat roosts - are protected and also to to contribute as much data as possible each year to the National Bat Monitoring Programme.

(Carol Ann demonstrates how some sites are just plain awkward to access)

Having reached a stage when I've arrived at the bottom of my list of possible sites, when we're running out of winter and when frankly I've seen enough wet, muddy and claustrophobic underground places to last a lifetime, I thought it would be interesting to take stock.

Including surveys of exisiting hibernacula, both in the Lothians and in Dumfries and Galloway, in the past three months I have surveyed:

• 6 limestone mines
• 1 copper mine
• 7 lime kilns (one of them flooded to about half an inch higher than my waders!)
• 2 tunnels
• 4 castles
• 2 soutterains
• 1 WW2 underground bunker
• 2 pill-boxes
• 3 air-raid shelters

Out of all those sites, the following records were made:

• 16 Natterer's Bats (Myotis nattereri)
• 5 Daubenton's Bats (Myotis daubentonii)
• 1 Unidentified myotis bat (Myotis sp.)
• 6 Brown Long-eared Bats (Plecotus auritus)
• 16 Pipistrelles (Pipistrellus sp.)

(Two Natterer's Bats hibernating in a cave roof crevice )

The frustration is that all the bats were in the sites where we expected to find them. In other words: no, we haven't found any new hibernacula! That said, there are several sites which have strong potential and will be revisited next year. The disappointing result is probably only to be expected. Bats are extremely discerning about sites they use for hibernation: their requirements regarding temperature, humidity, constancy of both and lack of disturbance are very precise. That is exactly why it is so important to find and protect these sites.

(A Daubenton's Bat hibernating in a gap within the wall of an underground stone bothy)

So, after many days of clambering about in thick gooey mud, with chilly water running down my neck, was it all worth it? Well, yes it was. Nigel, Carol Ann, Rachel, Stuart, David, Natalie, Freda, Max, Peter and all the other bat group members I've surveyed with are great company and there's a real feeling of doing something valuable for conservation, even if it's only to strike a site off the list.

Those sites in which we didn't find any bats often produced other compensations. Amongst other things, I've seen four different Barn Owl (Tyto alba) roosts, more Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) than you can shake a stick at and some rather attractive grey slugs with a cream stripe (species, anyone?). Plus, loads of fascinating human history: from 3,000 year-old soutterains, through 600 year old castles to World War II bunkers and pill-boxes.

Oh, and I've got through enough Persil to sink a ship....

(Nigel, looking intrepid in a copper mine)

Please remember that hibernating bats are extremely vulnerable to disturbance. Carrying out hibernaculum surveys requires a roost visitor's licence with a specific endorsement. Entering a hibernaculum and disturbing hibernating bats is a criminal offence. Many hibernation sites are also extremely dangerous. If you are interested in doing this type of survey work contact your local bat group, who can help you to get involved legally and without risk of harming the bats or you.

Find your local bat group: http://www.bats.org.uk/batgroups/batgroups_list.asp

More information on the NBMP: http://www.bats.org.uk/nbmp/index.asp

Lothians Bat Group: http://plecotus.co.uk/page_1204624452640.html

My Website: plecotus.co.uk