Last night was the official opening of the Bat Group Bat Cave. Soggy has worked long an hard to develop this project and has been helped by a team of volunteers to get it ready. Last night we had the official opening and discovered that there was room for a dozen people plus a bat .
Being the Bedfordshire Bat Group we used this as an excuse to celebrate, which of course included cake.
We watched two captive pips – a soprano and a common take it in turns to practice flying. These are two animals which had to be overwintered as they had not gained enough weight. (One, Tiddles, was found as a pup and reared by Soggy.) While the first bat flew back and forth for over 10 minutes, Tiddles flew for over twenty. The watchers felt they were seeing a very long Wimbledon rally as the bat swooped back and forth without stopping. In the end the bat was caught when it hung up for a minute to rest.
Both bats are pretty close to being releasable as their flying is getting very strong. Bill who looked after the bats over winter is sad to see them leave his care, but we have reassured him that there will be more
Bats will obviously not be left in here during he day because the 6metre long polytunnel will heat up, but bat carers will be able to bring their charges here for flight practice.
All this for under £200. Gold star to Soggy and crew.
The bat cave was funded by donations from talks