Wot, no bats, Chad?

Tonight was the Bat Walk. I'd organised it and I was determined to do part of it. Tina, our bat expert, lives in this village so I gave her a lift to Haltwhistle. It was a cold, windy evening so the prospects of seeing bats were not good. However, all participants turned up on time and Tina gave an excellent presentation on bats.

At the end was the piece de resistance: Tina had brought along a captive common pipistrelle. This bat has not learnt to fly nor to hibernate and T has a special licence to keep her for educational purposes. Everyone was enthralled. Flash photography would have been cruel so all my pics were taken at a high ISO.

I chose this of Catherine over the shots of the bat, because I like her expression. I also chose it because we saw and heard not a single bat outside. It's just too cold and there are no insects flying. It is expected that bat populations will have been hard hit by this winter.

We walked uphill by the Burn in the dusk and downhill again in the dark, clutching our bat detectors hopefully. (Arth decided to be quite civilised so I'm hoping he is OK tomorrow.)

I was late home so this is blipped on 29th.