For many years now the Bedfordshire Bat Group has been doing walks at Ampthill Park. Demand has always outstripped our ability to meet it as August is the peak time for surveys
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So, we came up with a cunning plan. Ampthill Park has some very active volunteers and we offered to train them to lead walks. Bob is going to train them, doing a basic bat information session in the Autumn and a session on identifying bats from their calls, with the theory being backed up by some practice in the Spring.
The bat group was in Laurel Wood trapping on Sunday night and we were joined by five volunteers, who were able to see pips, brown long eareds, Natterer’s and Barbastelle at close quarters. Chris got a lovely photo of the of the barbs, which unusually for barbs showed the eye very clearly.
Barbastelle with eye open Photo Chris Lambert
They were fascinated, as was Chantelle who got her first chance to process a barbastelle and Colin who got more practice handling bats.
We caught an impressive 21 bats.