After the flood plain that was Harrold Odell Country Park today’s roost hunt was a bit of a doddle, though the wind was quite cold. The group finished the survey of Bakers Wood and identified a number of trees with high roost potential.We will be passing this info onto the Greensand Trust who manage the wood, and we will try to investigate some of the promising trees later in the year.
This job is so much easier when the leaves are off the trees, you have decent binoculars with you and the paths aren’t waterlogged
This mature oak tree had “barbastelle ” written all over it, and we know there are barbastelles nearby as Phil Brown set up a harp trap just behind the holly and caught a barb there last summer, but there was too much foliage to spot the state of the trunk.
A closer look at the trunk revealed some ideal homes for barbastelles
During the survey, we actually found a hibernating bat – deep in a crack in this tree. You could just make it out if you put your face flat against the trunk and peered upward,but we did not try to photograph it.
All this made us very keen for the arrival of the bat season when we can carry on with our investigations.The Stockgrove Survey is open to any one, whether or not they are a member and takes place once a fortnight from April through to the end of September. Come along if you are curious.