A Wednesday Night Bat Walk

Posted on | September 11, 2008 | 2 Comments

Yesterday evening I went back to Fleet Pond so that I could go on the Bat Walk at Fleet Pond that was advertised. I hadn’t been on one of these before so was rather keen to go on this one.

It was dusk when I pulled up at the Pay and Display Car Park at Fleet Train Station. Even so I still had to pay to leave the car there. I begrudgingly paid, and looked on it as the price of going on the Bat Walk.

There were quite a few people there. More than I thought there would be. Being a nooby to all this I didn’t have my own bat detector. But a few of the people there did. So I guess those that did, were regulars to spotting bats. I also made another assumption when the Park Ranger (sorry that always brings up images of great big wilderness parks, and Yogi Bear) asked some one called Colin (definitely a pensioner) to help lead the group to certain spots around Fleet Pond to find bats. My assumption was that the guy knew Fleet Pond really well, and also was most likely a very active member of the Fleet Pond Society. Some of the others in the group seemed to know him as well.

It seemed a bit strange where we were walking to see/hear the bats. I very rarely walk the dogs at these spots because I’m anti-social, and this side tends to get lots more people walking round it, and the paths are very narrow for passing. Plus there are fishing platforms, and the dogs especially Barney given a chance raid the fishermen for food. So it was a pleasant surprise to be this side of the pond.

After a brief talk on bats, and guide to using the bat detector we were at our first bat spotting spot. It was on the edge of a clearing. The frequency was set to 25 kilo hertz on the bat detector within seconds we were hearing the sounds of a Noctule.

Click on this to hear a Noctule with a pipistrelle talk by the Park Ranger in background

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The Noctule was soon joined by a couple of feeding pipistrelle. The assumption was that these were Soprano pipistrelle because of the higher frequency that they could be heard on compared to the common pipistrelle.

We then headed into the trees where we were listening to pipistrelle again. From there we went down to the waters edge to spot Daubenton’s. These are the bats that skim just above the water in their hunt for food. As the wind got up the Daubenton’s disappeared to more sheltered spots. The Park Ranger said this is because the Daubenton’s didn’t like choppy water. I suspect it may also be that the insects that the bat eats don’t like breezes/wind, so head for sheltered spots. Which the Daubenton follows them to. Which makes more sense to me. We all know that a breeze keeps the insects away in the evening when in camp. And it’s what I imagine is happening here.

After moving to a couple of other water side spots to look for more Daubenton’s, there were more Soprana Pipistrelle’s as well. It was time to call it an evening and head home.

I really enjoyed my first bat walk. I can see myself getting my own bat detector and trying this on my own some evenings. But that will be a project for next year, I have to many projects on the go at the moment as it is. If you get a chance to go on one of these local to where you live, do go it is definitely worth it.

Click on the below to hear a Pipistrelle.

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Click on the below to hear a Daubenton.

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PS: If I have made a mistake identifying the sounds of the bats please let me know.

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