17 Sep 2024
Bat Box Making at Seaton Wetlands

Ranger Ben is the team’s resident bat enthusiast, and on August Bank Holiday weekend he was very busy working with bats across the reserves as we celebrated International Bat Night.

Friday saw him assisting Professor Fiona Mathews as she installed a Motus Wildlife Tracking System receiver at Seaton Wetlands. Two aerials track signals from radio-tagged bats, gathering information for the England Bats Motus Project, and hopefully providing data on Nathusius’ pipistrelle which migrate from the continent. Any radio tag signals received are logged at https://motus.org/.

On the evening, Ben and Education Ranger Penny welcomed 20 members of the East Devon Age UK group into the Reed Base for a cup of tea and a short talk about the bat species present at the Wetlands, before heading out into the evening for a bat walk. With detectors in hand the group witnessed lots of activity and recorded six species of bats including Lesser Horseshoe.

On Saturday morning a group of young bat enthusiasts joined Ben for a bat box building workshop, with eight boxes being built and advice given on how to locate the boxes and other ways to attract bats into people’s gardens and green spaces.

After a quick afternoon of rest, Ben headed back out again to join Fiona Mathews and members of the Devon Bat Conservation and Research Group for an evening of bat trapping and surveying in Holyford Woods.

Using harp traps and mist nets (activity allowed under licenses held by Fiona Mathews) the aim of this evening was to, hopefully, trap female or juvenile barbastelle and Bechstein’s bats to place radio tags on them and learn if they are roosting in the woods.

Over the course of the night common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, whiskered, Daubenton’s, and noctule bats were trapped and safely released, but it wasn’t until the last bat of the evening (at well past midnight!) that a juvenile male barbastelle appeared in one of the harp traps.

This bat was fitted with a radio tag by Fiona and released, and on Sunday was tracked to a tree within the woodland, confirming that barbastelle are in fact roosting at Holyford Woods!

So, all in all a busy few days of bat activity for Ben, but it all goes to show the passion and dedication of the Wild East Devon team.