28 Nature Notes Lots to enjoy in the Great Outdoors


Birds, bluebells and bats It’s a busy season outside with everything bursting into life and colour. Birds are nesting, flowers and trees are budding and wildlife is stirring with hedgehogs and bats coming out of hibernation.


Go Bat Crazy! April is a great time of year to start


looking out for bats and in Devon we are home to the Greater Horseshoe Bat which is otherwise rare in the UK. As the light dims, the bats start stirring and these night time predators come out to feed along hedges and through fields using echolocation to find their prey of- ten catching them mid-flight. Moths and beetles are the mainstay of the greater horseshoe’s diet and they are particularly keen on dung beetles found on cow pats! Bats themselves are often targeted by sparrowhawks and the domestic cat.


Batty Events 27 April


Did you know?


• Bats are the only true flying mammals in the world


• Greater Horseshoe bats are the UK’s biggest bat and are the size of a small pear


• Greater Horseshoe bats live for up to 30 years with maybe only 1 pup per year.


• The Greater Horseshoe bat is identified by the horseshoe shaped skin around its nostrils.


• Bats like to roost in quarries and old buildings


With most bats declining in numbers the species is well protected. The annual Devon Bat Survey begins in April and runs to October and anyone can get involved by contacting the Devon Greater Horseshoe Bat Project www.devonbatproject.org and arrange to pick up a bat detector at Avon Mill.


BUCKFASTLEIGH BAT DAY 1 – 5pm Help to make Buckfastleigh a ‘bat friendly’ town and join the Devon Wildlife Trust for batty activities in Victoria Park.


www.devonbatproject.org


16 May NATURE WALK IN HEMBURY WOODS 11am – 1pm. Join the Bat Project, All the Moor Butterflies and the National Trust for a Nature Walk all about butterflies and bats in the beau- tiful Hembury Woods on the edge of Dartmoor. Free event but booking essential. Contact Megan on mlowe@butterfly-conserva- tion.org or 07827 460767.


24 May BERRY HEAD


BAT WALK Unique opportunity to see the Greater Horse- shoe bat at Berry Head. 8 – 10pm. Country- side-trust.org.uk


27 & 30 May


BAT WATCH Slapton Field Centre Explore the night-time world of these magical creatures. Booking essential. Events.sl@field-studies-council.org


Berry Head. Bat haven.


Berry Head Photo © Copyright Richard Dorrell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence


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