Monday 22 August 2011

Holywells Park - Bat walk

The Friends of Holywells Park organised a Bat Walk for Saturday evening.  T was keen to come along with me, as he lived close to the Park when he was a boy and spent a lot of time there.

I had expected a small group of keen bat watchers but was amazed by the number of people who turned up, including several families with small children, which was very nice to see.  It was a lovely mild and calm evening so pretty much perfect conditions.

We gathered around the 'Bat Tree' which was saved from felling by The Friends when they discovered roosting pipistrelles, and we were very lucky to see a number of common pipistrelles flying around the tree well before dusk.  We set off on our walk around the park but were not so lucky with noctule bats, which I would have liked to have seen.  My detector only picked up crickets in the low frequency noctule range!

However this was soon forgotten when we arrived at the ponds where there seemed to be bats everywhere.  Large numbers of soprano pipistrelles were hunting low over the water, coming close enough to be seen, and easily heard on the several detectors we had with us.

An added highlight for me was the transit overhead of the International Space Station, which was very bright. I shall look out for this again in future.  Transit times can be downloaded from http://spaceweather.com/flybys/country.php

Thanks are due to our knowledgeable leader, Peter Scotcher, who kept us well-informed and entertained throughout the evening.

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