The Lemon Fool

I'm already anticipating the pun...

In spite of Londoners telling me bats are everywhere, I never see them. Last summer I meant to find a bat walk but they all seem to be cancelled. Nothing online for this year either.

So, I will go in search of bats myself, probably at Hyde Park as it seems the safest option. What's the best time to see them? All tips appreciated. There might be some in the local park. Any tell tale signs of bat colonies that I should look for?

Thanks.

Sunnypad wrote:Any tell tale signs of bat colonies that I should look for?

My knowledge is, er, limited. If you are in your loft and you see a circle of droppings it is probably from a bat. The only time I knew for 100% certain that bats were fluttering around me was here in the late seventies. Hope the next installment is more helpful C.

Sunnypad wrote:I'm already anticipating the pun...

In spite of Londoners telling me bats are everywhere, I never see them. Last summer I meant to find a bat walk but they all seem to be cancelled. Nothing online for this year either.

So, I will go in search of bats myself, probably at Hyde Park as it seems the safest option. What's the best time to see them? All tips appreciated. There might be some in the local park. Any tell tale signs of bat colonies that I should look for?

Thanks.

Well I dunno about in London but around here, bats flit about around my garden and around my boat at dusk in the warm weather, and one every minute or so is easily spotted. I'd expect them to be present in city centre parks too. Just stand around in the gloaming and watch...

I'm blessed if I can work out why they are a protected species, they are so common. They are absolutely everywhere Including roosting and defecating inside churches and mucking up the pews. We get them flying around inside the ringing rooms when we are bellringing. Quite amusing really!

Dusk. Especially in summer, bit early in the year yet for daylight hunting. Around dusk there are lots of bugs still flying about, so the bats turn up for a feed. They are creatures of habit so may be worth searching online for good spots. Wetlands, ponds, canals, etc typically attract the bugs, and thus the bats.

I used to get a lot of them at my house in urban Nottingham. Don’t know where they came from but could see them flitting about the garden most evenings. If I left the curtains open, the light attracted bugs and thus bats. They’d often flit past the window in the light. So watch around the streetlights as it gets dark.

Gryff

People keep telling me they are everywhere so I guess it's time for me to hang around a park at dusk....dusk will still be safe enough with runners about I guess.

I'd love to see a bat around every minute! I live in a high rise, no garden. But I've never seen them at mum's either. She literally won't let anyone out in the garden after 7pm, not even dad when he was alive, so I don't know for sure. But I sit by the window at dusk, no sign of them. Must be an area they don't like!

Do they hide from humans? In my younger days, night time garden parties would have kept the bats away I guess?

The ringing room in St Mary's in Kintbury is usually littered with tortoiseshell butterfly wings, and also whole, live tortoiseshell butterflies.

We think the bat catches them, brings them in then eats them and discards the wings, or loses or drops the whole butterflies before managing to scoff them.

I'm really missing tower bell-ringing. Is this veering orf-topic?

And no they don't hide from humans, not even a little bit. Totally not bovvered!!

In London suburbs we had them regularly, seen at this time of year flying from a neighbour's eves.
Watch out at dusk. I knew when the bats were active in our eves because I would find little bat droppings on the dustbin lid.
Where I live now in West Sussex, we see bats flying from a neighbour's eve's at dusk too, and last weekend a first - two bats flying along the river hunting flies in broad daylight. I've never seen this before and wonder if the weather being so cold they were having trouble with shortage of prey at night.

Arb.

Sunnypad wrote:People keep telling me they are everywhere so I guess it's time for me to hang around a park at dusk

I’d give it a month yet for peak bat season. Bit early in the year. Bats seem to be much more active when there are lots of insects around. Bit early for the bugs yet, especially with the cold weather we’ve been having.

Gryff

gryffron wrote:

Sunnypad wrote:People keep telling me they are everywhere so I guess it's time for me to hang around a park at dusk

I’d give it a month yet for peak bat season. Bit early in the year. Bats seem to be much more active when there are lots of insects around. Bit early for the bugs yet, especially with the cold weather we’ve been having.

Gryff

That's what I was thinking. I was hoping there'd be organised walks but I think the volunteers who sort that kind of thing, understandably, can't be bothered at the mo.

I also checked Walthamstow Wetlands but they close at 5pm, fairly sure that's not their normal opening hours bit maybe that's it for summer.

Mostly you don't so much see a bat as sense the rapid movement around you. But if you're out at the right time, you'll inevitably get some near misses where the bat veers off at the last moment before potentially hitting you: make-you-blink moments. Presumably their echo-location is steering them clear.

Their food is out.

UncleEbenezer wrote:Mostly you don't so much see a bat as sense the rapid movement around you.

Or write them off as swifts

- sd

servodude wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Mostly you don't so much see a bat as sense the rapid movement around you.

Or write them off as swifts

- sd

funny you should say that, their fluttering flight is rather like that of swallows. Swifts are more like jet fighters, aren't they? Or is it the other way around??

servodude wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Mostly you don't so much see a bat as sense the rapid movement around you.

Or write them off as swifts

- sd

Ah, is that what you'd prefer they were?

Glad I started this thread. It made me realise I haven't been out in nature at all. Will take binoculars and see the W Wetlands this summer, bit of a journey but will see what the fuss is about.

Mike4 wrote:

servodude wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Mostly you don't so much see a bat as sense the rapid movement around you.

Or write them off as swifts

- sd

funny you should say that, their fluttering flight is rather like that of swallows. Swifts are more like jet fighters, aren't they? Or is it the other way around??

to be honest - dunno!

could be martins? swallows have that fancy tail

anyways the fast flat "I'm going to aim at your head until the last minute" ones that come out about dusk to eat insects on the wing
- used to find them and bats taking turns in my mum's drying green

- sd

Sunnypad wrote:

servodude wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Mostly you don't so much see a bat as sense the rapid movement around you.

Or write them off as swifts

- sd

Ah, is that what you'd prefer they were?

Glad I started this thread. It made me realise I haven't been out in nature at all. Will take binoculars and see the W Wetlands this summer, bit of a journey but will see what the fuss is about.

I like bats - well the little ones anyway

flying foxes though give me the creeps - it's the leathery horror movie flapping noise (and the hanging around in their thousands)

- sd

Plenty about in East Sussex already.

Mike4 wrote:funny you should say that, their fluttering flight is rather like that of swallows.

And how differently we think of them, depending on what we think they are. Or DH Lawrence, did, anyway: https://engpoetry.com/david-herbert-lawrence/bat-2/

BJ (Total bat nut - we have a belfry 20 yards from our house. And yes, I've been hit head-on by a pipistrelle at speed. Oops.)

Keep a watch put for with your local Wildlife Trust. our local one organises walks with a local expert and and you are given bat detectors, it was fascinating summer's evening and we heard/saw several different species of bat.

MM

When bats are out and about they fly past my living room window very often, sometimes straight past, perhaps on their way to the river a few hundred yards away, if their food is outside my window, they'll dive and turn for me to watch, incredibly manouevrable, more so than birds. They started appearing about six weeks ago, then disappeared as the weather turned cold, then came back, and now they are not about again. They seem. to be able to re-hibernate quite well? As others have said, dusk is my busy time.

I started a batological thread a couple of years ago, when I was surprised to see a few in February, but it seems this is.not unusual. Incidentally, if anyone knows the correct term for 'batological', I'd be interested to know it.

It's a lovely evening now, so I hope I'll see them in an hour or so.

Plenty of them about from dusk through the night. Much easier to see at dusk though!