An educational bat

This is a female common pipistrelle bat who was introduced to us on a bat walk in our village this evening. She became separated from her family, who had moved on by the time attempts were made to return her to the brood, so she came to our local bat expert for TLC and 3 hourly dropper feeds.

Best seen larger

Sadly she has developmental delay and has shown no sign of wanting to stretch her wings. Her growth is delayed too. So for that reason she will have to stay in captivity and can be handled gently, as in the photo. Bats that are wild and are to be returned to the wild after care must be handled very little and gloves must be worn. This little bat allows people like me to see one up close.

We all had bat detectors and set them to 45 or 55 khz to pick up the echos from the pipistrelles and the soprano pipistrelles in the churchyard. There were also Daubenton's bats by the river and Naterer's bats.

What a fun evening and the midges hardly bothered us (perhaps the bats were eating them all!)