The Young Explorer’s Bat Walk

On the evening of Monday 11^th July, three young bat detectives and their mums, in the company of Committee members Tony Serjeant and Laurie Prowse, set off from the Devonshire Institute in Grassington armed with bat detectors. As it was still light at 9pm, we were not expecting to see many bats for at least half an hour. Instead, we were treated to an aeronautical display to rival the Red Arrows by the local swifts which buzzed us with high-speed, low-level, flypasts. Their shrill, screeching calls echoed through the village as they hunted down the evening’s menu del dia.

Tony explained that, when it was dark enough, the swifts would retire to bed and the bats would take their turn at the table, hunting by sound instead of by light. Sure enough, as the Town Hall clock struck ten, a dark shadow whizzed past at speed and the first bat detector, tuned to the frequency of a Common Pipistrelle, bleeped into action. We quickly tuned all the detectors to the same frequency and were rewarded with a series of bleeps as a bat sped over our line of bat detectives setting off each device in turn.

After a while, we wandered steadily down through the village to arrive at the bridge and, leaning over the parapet, we tuned the machines into various different frequencies according to Tony’s instructions. Iris picked up a Natterer’s bat and Isla heard the signal from a Daubenton’s bat a few moments a later. They were flying around and under the bridge, searching for insects near the water surface. Oscar’s detector was bleeping away with the Pipistrelles. The detectors can pick up signals over quite a distance so we could follow the flight paths as they flew out over the fields and back.

Overall, it was an exciting and informative event and Tony did an amazing job. Our thanks to him for the leading the walk and to YDNPA for the loan of the equipment.

Laurie Prowse