Are there any bat experts out there?

[Mick F]

Yesterday evening, we had a bat flying round the living room.
We couldn't understand how it got in as all the windows were closed - one or two were on the latch, but no room for the bat to have got in. We also doubted that the cat had brought one in either!

We concluded that it had been in for a day or two.

Anyway, we watched it flying round and round and round and left the front door open with the outside light on and all the other lights off. Eventually we concluded that it had flown away.

However, fifteen minutes ago, there it is again! Broad daylight, Saturday afternoon, whizzing round and round and round. I closed all the doors and windows leaving the front door wide open. Eventually, it flew away - I watched it this time - right off down the garden and away from the house.

Whilst it was battily batting about, and whizzing inches away from my head, I dug out my camera and took some badly aimed photographs. Have you ever tried to tell a bat to sit still and have it's photograph taken?

Size/description?
Wingspan about 6", dark brown, bat shaped, silent.

Bat3.jpg (21.49 KiB) Viewed 6602 times

[daveg]

Did it have fangs? Had it smelt the blood from your injured pinkie?

Think you might be well advised to sleep with the lights on for a day or two

Does Mrs MickF have any garlic around?

[thirdcrank]

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=62261&p=530708&

[Mick F]

Vampire bats are bigger .... aren't they?
If it was living in here, it ain't now!
It's gorn orf down't drive.
We see them flitting about most evenings at about brillig*.

Still don't know what sort of bat it is. Probably a pipistrelle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipistrellus_pipistrellus
I couldn't hear any sonar, but I'm getting a little past it in hearing terms!



*We often refer to brillig. About four o'clock in the afternoon, the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brillig#Glossary

[fausto copy]

Quote from Mick: Have you ever tried to tell a bat to sit still and have it's photograph taken?

Yep, this one:

It was just emerging from the maternity roost in our porch.
I was wondering what it was doing out during the daytime and sadly it popped it's clogs the next day.

[LowPlainsDrifter]

'Dont know what type but pretty good pics though!
Maybe it was looking for Renfield?

[ferrit worrier]

Hi Mick

Looks like a Pipistrelle

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/pipistrelle-bat

Probably after a lollipop

Malc

[Mick F]

Fausto Copy, you batty has darker wings than ours.
Does the colour vary with bats?
...... but I doubt they eat lollipops!

I know nowt much about them. Mrs Mick F was asking yesterday how they give birth upside down!

[fausto copy]

I know nowt much about them. Mrs Mick F was asking yesterday how they give birth upside down!

Nah, they give birth on the wing and then the midwife bat comes along behind and scoops the baby up in her wing.
That's why they're so soft and flexible.

[meic]

Apparently only a minority of bat species do the dangling upside down thing anyway.

[Yael]

I asked my friend (who is a bat researcher), and she said something along the lines of "more than likely pipistrelle, possibly have a colony in their house. These bats can access from tiny cracks and crevices, it most likely did not enter through an open window."
I spent a lovely weekend with my friend on the Isle of Wight, crawling through people's attics and collecting bat droppings; they seem to have a taste for posh houses, so if I were you I'd congratulate myself.

[fausto copy]

I spent a lovely weekend with my friend on the Isle of Wight, crawling through people's attics and collecting bat droppings; they seem to have a taste.......

Phew. had me worried for a moment there.
I thought you were going to describe a flavour.

[daveg]

I asked my friend (who is a bat researcher), and she said something along the lines of "more than likely pipistrelle, possibly have a colony in their house. These bats can access from tiny cracks and crevices, it most likely did not enter through an open window."
I spent a lovely weekend with my friend on the Isle of Wight, crawling through people's attics and collecting bat droppings; they seem to have a taste for posh houses, so if I were you I'd congratulate myself.

Don't say that. Jeremy Clarkson will be wanting some

[Mick F]

..........."more than likely pipistrelle, possibly have a colony in their house. These bats can access from tiny cracks and crevices, it most likely did not enter through an open window." ..........

I remember Dr Mark Porter on the radio saying that rare things happen rarely, and common things happen almost all the time. (or words to that effect)

Seems an obvious thing to say, but if you think about it, it's an excellent truism. Dr P was referring to medical conditions, but it can be used for almost anything in life. Almost akin to Occam's Razor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor
It is a principle urging one to select among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect.

Therefore it isn't a rare bat species, and it didn't just happen to fly inside our living room one evening.
Therefore, our bat is a Pipistrelle, and we have a colony either in the loft, or in the roof space.

I must investigate further ..................

[meic]

I think the term colony gives the wrong impression, I never notice the bats in groups of any number.
Also I doubt that you would find them too easily in the attic, I have never found their nests, I havent looked but they are tiny little creatures with lots of places to hide.

I am pretty sure that some of mine are living inside the walls and others may be in the corrugations of an asbestos roof where it rests on the supports.