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Bats
in Broad Daylight
____________________________________________________
Posted: 16th March 2007
Photo: G. Bradley |
On mild days in March you may be lucky enough to see a bat flying in
the daytime. Just this week I watched a Lesser Horseshoe bat for about half an hour as it flew just above my head in brilliant sunshine at
Chedworth in Gloucestershire. After a few months in hibernation without any food
they obviously get a tad peckish, and judging by the way this one was stuffing itself on gnats and midges it was starving. Hardly surprising when you
think it had probably been hanging around in hibernation for a few months without any food at all.
Bats are possibly the most misunderstood (and under-rated) mammals in the UK. Despite popular opinion, our native bats do not drink blood.
It's an easy mistake to make, but of course the real blood-suckers are
leeches, mosquitoes and the Inland Revenue.
There are 16 species of bat found in the U.K., and they all feed on insects which they catch on the wing. This kind of hunting requires pin-point accuracy, and so the chances of them getting tangled in your hair (another widely held and mistaken belief) is virtually nil.
It's true that they will fly very close to your head, but it's not you they're aiming for. Even in total darkness they can detect a strand in a spiders web and fly around it. In fact when they fly close to your head there's
probably an insect just above you. The heat from your body rises up and the warm air above
your head attracts all kinds of flying insects. Bats then fly in and catch them.
If you want to discover more facts about bats checkout Phil
Richardson's excellent book called "Bats" available in the Nature Shop.
British Bat Identification Chart
Bat Detectors
UK Safari News
UK Safari Bat Section
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