An exciting time at Ampthill Park.

For several years now we have been running walks at Ampthill Park, which are
always oversubscribed. Where possible we lay on a second walk (Thanks Steve
Halton) but even then people are turned away.
This seems a shame but trapping and bat surveys have to take priority. So,
we have come up with a solution. Bob has offered to train park staff and volunteers so that in future they can lead the bat walks.
He is doing an indoor training session for them on bats in the Autumn and a practical session in the spring. The park is getting some detectors of its own, which again frees ours up. We’ve offered to deal with queries that come up that the volunteers are
unable to answer. We had five of the volunteers join us when we trapped there on Sunday night ( Two of whom are already members of the Bat Group)

The volunteers were very enthusiastic and got good sights of pipistrelles, brown long
eared, Natterer’s and barbastelles in the hand, which they loved. We also introduced them to the bat cake eating in the dark ordeal, which they survived.
A very successful night with a total of 21 bats caught including Daubenton’s after the volunteers left , but they got to meet  soprano pips, Natterer’s and Brown and a barbastelle.

We arelooking forward to the training sessions

 

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