RSPB Bat Walk

Last night Poppy and I went on a Bat Walk at our local RSPB Nature Reserve. On arrival we were shown how to use our bat detectors whilst waiting for others to turn up. We have never been to this reserve, despite being a short drive away. We started or walk whilst there was still some light. We listened and watched the rooks in the rookery, making a huge noise! We then stood by the lake and turned on our detectors, within seconds we heard the plopping and tapping sounds to indicate the presence of bats. Alison, our guide, identified them as Pipistrells, although we also heard and saw the Noctule Bat and possibly sighted a Daubenton’s bat which usually swoops low over lakes, canals and rivers. We also heard the ‘twit-twoo’ of the Tawny Owl but unfortunately didn’t manage to spot one 😦

The view across the lakes was absolutely stunning, it was a perfect evening with barely a ripple on the surface.

As we continued our walk, we stopped to look at some slugs in our path as we had a ‘slug expert’ with us and was very excited to see a tiger slug amongst others.

Part of our walk took as alongside the guided busway and as we walked we saw the bright lights of the bus approaching and so stopped to watch it pass. It doesn’t seem that it would be terribly interesting really, watching a bus, however in the environment it seemed quite surreal and eerie. Poppy said it reminded her of the Night Bus in Harry Potter 🙂

As we came to the end of our walk, we could see the bright light of the moth trap which had been set up. This was basically a bright light sat between two chairs and then a white sheet draped across and over the back of the chairs. Simon had caught a few moths for us to look at whist we enjoyed hot chocolate overlooking another of the many lakes on the reserve. We also took a few minutes to admire the skies although it was a little cloudy we could still make out a couple of constellations.

Alison was incredibly knowledgeable and informative and certainly new a lot about bats, owls, moths and other creatures found on the reserve. Poppy really loved her night out under the stars and is looking forward to going back again 🙂