Has local wildlife gone batty for your house?

Thursday 26 June 2014

It might sound like a batty idea but having a bat in your belfry can keep mosquitos at bay – but would you know if one was roosting near you?

If you’ve seen tiny droppings on window ledges or stuck on the side of the walls or clear cobweb-free gaps under your roofing then the chances are that bats have set up home with you and that’s something the Jersey Bat Group and Environment department need to know to help protect them.

They are running a workshop next month so that you can find out more about the 11 different species of bat recorded living in Jersey and how you can help protect them too.

Chair of the Jersey Bat group Nicky Brown said: “Bats are an amazing and vital part of our wildlife, providing a valuable service to our environment; a single pipistrelle can eat 3000 mosquitoes or midges a night.

“But if we’re to continue to conserve the many different species we’re home to, it’s crucial that we continue to monitor their population and raise awareness of their needs. For that, we really do rely on the good will and knowledge of volunteers. If you think you might be interested in knowing more, or helping us with our summer surveys please sign up for the training day, and consider joining the Jersey Bat Group.”

It’s an important time of the year for bats with females on the hunt for a “maternity roost” to have a single “pup” and often using the same roost site for generations.

Volunteers are busy trying to visit roosts that have recorded in the past to see if they are still being used and they are keen to find new sites.

They make “exit counts” – watching and counting bats as they leave their roost around dusk. They try to identify species using special equipment that translates the ultrasound calls that bats make into sounds that the human ear can hear.

The most commonly found bat species in the Island is the common pipistrelle but long eared bats and serotines have also been spotted.

The workshop is being held at Durrell Conservation Academy on 5 July from 2 pm until 8 pm. You can book your place by calling Nina Cornish on 441624 or by emailing her at n.cornish@gov.je

If you think you may have bats on your property you can contact Nicky Brown at jerseybatgroup@yahoo.co.uk or David Tipping at d.tipping@gov.je