Natterer's bat - Tom Marshall
Thanks to funding from Eat Natural, Essex Wildlife Trust Ambassador Katie Goldsbrough led a workshop for our wonderful Urban Wildlife Champions. Held at Abberton Reservoir Nature Discovery Park, the focus was on bat ecology and how to provide for them in our towns and villages across Essex.
Just before sunset, Katie spent the first part of the workshop discussing behaviour, habitat and eating habits and Urban Wildlife Champions became familiar with the various species of bats such as the common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, noctule bat, Daubenton's bat and brown long-eared bat. We are lucky to have 18 species of bat in the UK, 17 which are known to be breeding here.
A surprise guest also joined us; Gary the bat! Katie, under licence for educational purposes, gave Champions the chance to take a closer look at a common pipistrelle bat. Gary is an educational bat, as he cannot be released back into the wild due to a wing injury but is healthy enough to stay in captivity, inspiring people across Essex to love bats.
As dusk settled in, the Champions spent the rest of the evening enjoying a bat walk using bat detectors. Bats hunt for insects using high-frequency systems called echolocation, which is picked up by ultrasonic detectors. Champions became familiar with the hockey stick shape echolocation pulse for the common pipistrelle bat and experienced these amazing flying mammals foraging over their heads.
Donna, Urban Wildlife Champion, said:
"Fascinating evening learning about and observing bats. I am excited to be working on a small project which will involve installing some bat boxes in trees in the Hatfield Peverel cemetery."
John, also an Urban Wildlife Champion, added:
"The workshop was very enjoyable. It was good to be able to walk and talk informally and listen to the bats using the bat detectors. Katie is highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic. We learnt a lot and went home very motivated!"
Gary, Katie's bat helper!
Bat detecting, credit: Emma Bradshaw
Our Urban Wildlife Champions are integral to our Wilder Essex vision, with many developing projects that provide for our UK bats in our urban environments. Empowering communities to take action in their own locality will support our towns and villages welcome nature right on their doorsteps.
To find out what our Urban Wildlife Champions are up to, check out our Story Map:
If you would like to become an Urban Wildlife Champion, sign up below:
Without Eat Natural’s funding, our second workshop would not have been possible, and we thank them for supporting us to create a Wilder Essex.
