It got me thinking about these amazing little creatures, what species do we have in the park & where do they roost, would other like minded people also want to know more about our little nocturnal friends?
I have heard of bat walks taking place in Blackley Forest & thought to myself how fantastic it would be for Debdale to do something similar.
So I picked up the phone & spoke to the 'Batman' Jerry Sorfleet, Jerry is an expert on bats & currently does the bat walks in Blackley Forest that have proved so popular.
Basically I told Jerry all about Debdale & basically begged him to come with his bat detector & tell us what we have in the park :0)
Thankfully Jerry agreed, so now it's just a case of waiting for this rain to stop as bats don't come out in the rain & who can blame them!
So whilst we wait for the arrival of 'Batman' I thought I would give you some interesting facts :0)
- There are 17 species of bats resident in the UK - that's more than a quarter of our mammals species.
- A tiny pipistrelle bat can eat up to 3,000 insects in a night.
- Bats usually only have one baby at a time and can live up to 30 years.
- Bats are more closely related to people than mice.
- Britain's most common bat, the pipistrelle, is only 4cm long and weighs about 5 grams - less than a 2p coin!
There are over 1,100 bat species in the world (accounting for 20% of all mammal species). Three-quarters of these eat insects just as British bats do. In the tropics bats also eat many other foods - fruit, flowers, frogs, fish, blood, even other bats!
- Bats do not build nests; they hang up or creep into cracks and crannies.
- Valuable foods and derivatives from bat-adapted plants include dates, vanilla, bananas, breadfruit, guavas, kapok, Iroko timber, balsa wood, sisal - even Tequila and chewing gum!
- Bats have excellent navigation skills - they won't get caught in your hair!
- There are thousands of volunteers working for bats in the UK alone.
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