When Bob set off for the Kings Wood box check, he didn’t expect to fins any bats as this time last year there were none. However, just in case he took his bat rings with him.
Just as well as five of the boxes checked had Brown long eareds in, including two in which we had never had bat signs before.
There were other inhabitants – several blue tits had built nests and these boxes were left undisturbed- as were the ones which contained one or more hornets ( for reasons of self preservation rather than thinking of survival of eggs)
Each bat was ringed and their details recorded before being put back in the box they came from. (The box is plugged and left for half an hour and this seems to stop them flying off.) Gwen won the prize for the most striking handling gloves( see below)
brown long eared bat in the gloved hand. Photo Mark Best
It was a very weary Bob who came back last night – and they had done less than half the boxes.
Big thanks to Alex, Gwen ,Nicky Mark and Steve (from the N Bucks group) who helped and to Mark who has volunteered to go back with Bob on Friday to try to get more of the boxes looked at
For the technically minded they found bats in five boxes
18 BLE- 15 females 3 females
2 BLE females
3 BLE 2 females, 1 male
4 BLE females
15 BLE 1 male 14 females
Most of the females were in breeding condition
Illustration RSPB
12 blue tit nests
6 boxes containing hornets
s
The females were ringed on the left wing and the males on the right.It will be interesting to see how many we see again later in the season
The boxes put up in January had no bats in them (yet) but some did have hornets and/or blue tits