Bats on Ham Lands
Here is local naturalist Mark Wagstaff's short video about bats on Ham Lands.
Click to hear the feeding buzz sounds that Mark has recorded on Ham Lands:
Soprano Polistrelle
Guided bat walk
We had a fantastic guided bat walk on Monday 13th October on Ham Lands with local naturalist Mark Wagstaff. The weather was perfect, and we heard both Common and Soprano Pipistrelles using bat detectors.
In Mark's introductory talk he shared some fascinating information about bats. Bats are the only mammals with powered flight. Their wings are modified hands with a membrane stretched across four elongated fingers. This allows highly manoeuvrable flight, a huge advantage that has enabled bats to spread to every continent except Antarctica and to evolve into more than 1,000 species. Bats (Chiroptera) comprise two-thirds of all individual mammals with an estimated head count of 56 billion. Humans, a mere 8.1 billion.
Seventeen species are known to breed in the UK, all are insectivores. Of these, nine species have been identified on Ham Lands at some point. These being Common, Soprano and Nathusius pipistrelles, Noctule, Serotine, Daubenton's bat, Natterer's bat, Brown long-eared bat and Leisler's bat. Mark has recorded all apart from Natterer's and Brown long-eared bats.