Bob and Jude got asked to join a group of bat folk at Wytham Woods in Oxford. This is one of the most heavily studied woods in the country. It has no less than 1300 bird boxes which are commandeered by bats. These boxes take days to check. Dani Linton was organising a day for the People’s Trust for endangered animals who came along to see some of the bats in the boxes .She invited us to join her for an evening of mist netting. Bob took his homemade triple high net and set this up next to Dani’s American triple high, which uses flag poles and weighs a ton. Harp traps were also set up.
We sat down to sit and caught up with friends and gave blood to some Very BITEY midges
We caught a bat which had been ringed during the day time box check.
Highlight for us was seeing our second whiskered bat in a fortnight. This was the first time that a whiskered bat had been recorded at Wytham,
Whiskered bat Photo Bob Cornes
Jude flagged at 2.15 (having baked brownies and flapjacks) in between watching the Olympics) and headed of to sleep in the car and so missed the other highlight – two barbastelles. Netting finished at 5.15am
Barbastelle Photo Bob Cornes