I like big bats and I cannot lie!

5 GoodGymers turned up at Richmond Bridge with the UK Bat Conservation Trust on Monday night to help run a survey of bats along the River Thames. We met the task owner/coordinator our own GoodGymer Ken and Philip from London Bat Group. We had a quick training on how to use a bat monitor and divided into 2 groups with another 6 volunteers from the community that came out to help with the survey to survey both sides of the River. Both Ken and Philip said that it seemed like an unusually quiet survey night for bats despite the near ideal conditions for bats and it was unclear why but when Ken had tabulated the data the next morning there was a good count and it was only marginally lower and not significantly different from the July count. We counted a total of 323 bats on 21 August (as compared to 349 in July). We did however count a lot more of our biggest UK bats the Noctule and Leisler's bats than any previous survey this year…so yes we do indeed like big bats!