Bats

Wednesday 30th December 2020

Today I took a walk down to Holt Copse to look at compartment 3. I am covering compartments 1, 2 and 3 - about 1.3 acres (half of Holt Copse) in one of my assignments. There are three bat boxes there - you can tell they are bat boxes as they are narrow and the entrance is the bottom so they have space to hang up!! In the past there was a big Noctule bat roost in the park. Noctules are one of the biggest bat species in the UK - all bats are protected - lots of planning regulations, unfortunately the roost was in a diseased oak tree and with the school nearby it had to be taken down. To pass the regulations they took down the branch with the roost on it and attached it to another tree nearby. I think you can guess how successful that was! But there probably are Pipistrelles around - it would be great to do a survey next year.