Illustration Joan Childs
On Thursday we went to the soprano pip roost. It was an NBMP count night, so of course the bats made it as hard as possible. It is the time of year when the young start flying. They seem to have got the hang of this. They are much less good at getting back to the roost. I watched several try to go back in and failing dismally before flying off in disgust. At another exit ,one poor chap /chappess tried repeatedly and ended up on the roof calling to his mum, who didn’t respond.
John got a really good view of the whole thing and was blown away by it. Any watching bat may have been entertained by him climbing out of the site, unaware that we had not locked the gate. The young tawny nearby was heard hooting with laughter?)
We counted just over 700 bats, so the bats are obviously using a secondary roost ,the hunt for which continues. We also think there is a barbastelle roost nearby as we heard them fly past relatively early (Barbs are late emergers)