Count Bat 2007

Created Jan 2008
Updated April 2012

In 2006 the Bat Conservation Trust ran three pilot projects for its Count Bat initiative.

In October 2006, the Bedfordshire Bat group was offered the chance to host a pilot project in 2007.

2007 Pilot Project
The project ran for six months with the aim of involving communities which were not traditionally involved in bat groups.We hoped that if this project was successful we would be able to attract funding for further work. While we like bats a lot, we don’t expect every-one to agree with us, but if this encourages people to take an interest in any aspect of the natural world then the bat group is going to be delighted.

The project was funded from 90% from landfill tax with a 10% top up from Bedfordshire County Council.

By the end of this meeting between Pride in Bedford, BCT and the bat group (some of whom have a formidable list of contacts) we had decided to work in the Queen’s Park area of Bedford and had brainstormed loads of ideas.We identified the Pride in Bedford Project as a good starting point

Queen’s Park was not an area the bat group knows – which was one reason why we chose it, but at our next meeting we met some of the urban and street rangers who were able to provide invaluable advice as we tried to turn our ideas into reality’

In February 2007 we all spent time together on a training day organised by the Black Environmental Network who have masses of experience and gave us lots of excellent suggestions. Click here to go to their website and find out more about what they do
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Saturday April 14th April 2007 Queen’s Park Neighbourhood Centre 1-4pm “Bats are brilliant “

A chance to find out about bats in Bedfordshire and other parts of the world.
Help us collect experiences and stories about bats from round the world – Bat treasure hunt – fun arts and crafts activities – badge making – try some fruit that wouldn’t exist without bats – refreshments and more

Dean’s account of the Treasure Hunt
2007 7 count bat treasurehunt
Jude’s account of the indoor part of the event
2007 4 count bat cuttingout
2007-4-Treasurehuntweb a copy of the Treasure Hunt questions

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Tuesday 24th April 2007 – How to lead a bat walk training
learn about bats and how to lead bat walks . A dozen people attended this training and went on to help with bats walks in May and June
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Friday 4th 2007 May 2007 – Bat Walk
An evening of food followed by a guided bat walk around Queen’s Park at dusk to look for bats with bat detectors . Over forty people turned up (This event was so oversubscribed we organised a second walk on June 1st)
Read Jude and Claire’s account of the Bat walk 2007 7 qpbatwalk__________________________________________________________________

Saturday June 9th 2007 Bat Fun Day

On our last major event in Queens Park, we tried out some new things 2007 -9Jun Count Bat including Willow sculpture,face painting and storytelling. This is when we started our collection  of bat folktales

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Queen’s Park Family Day Friday July 27th 1pm-3pm
This was an additional event we tended having been invited by the Queen’s Park Street Ranger, Paul Wheatley. Mark manned the stall for this event. Any Queens Parkers who recognised themselves in any of the  photos we had taken  were invited to drop by drop by and say hello and order a copy of the photos.

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Priory  Country Park Fun Day

 

This was another addition to our original plans, suggested by Paul Wheatley and was well worth attending as we met up with John Bishop who is warden at Priory Country Park. This was the beginning of an extremely fruitful relationship.
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A bat walk at Whipsnade Zoo Tuesday September 4th 2007-7-whipsnade walkcountbatwalk

 

We paid for a coach to take Queen’s Park residents  for a walk in Whipsnade Zoo

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Bat detector training day September 15th 2007 at Priory Park , Bedford.
The Bat Conservation Trust laid on a more advanced one day course on how to use bat detectors. It was attended by 12 people, including some who had joined us during the Count Bat Project and a number of others that we met for the first time. It was held at Priory and two of the Priory rangers attended. After a theory session we headed out to try our new   the lake at Priory. As well as both pipistrelles, Noctule and Daubenton’s we also we picked up Nathusius’ pipistrelle – a real rarity in these parts. We hope to go back to try to track down a roost or two. 2007-11 batdetectortrainingweb

This marked the end of the pilot project but the bat group continued working in Bedford

Write up of the Count Bat in our Annual Report .count bat section 2008 annual report

What did we do next ? Find out
Count Bat 2007
Count Bat 2008
Count Bat  Spin Offs 2009
Count Bat Spin Offs 2010
Count Bat  Spin Offs 2011
Count Bat spin offs 2012