Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2012 | Page 88

COUNTRY LIFE Charmed by Bats are more common than you might think, and some are quite easy to spot if you know where to look. Richard Grogan, the Wildlife Trust’s Head of Conservation on the Isle of Wight, identifies some of these charming mammals. Your local Wildlife Trust The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust works to create a better future for wildlife and wild places in Hampshire and the Island. As the leading local wildlife conservation charity, it looks after 57 wildlife reserves, has 28,000 members and 1,000 volunteers. The Trust manages its own land and advises other landowners how to manage their land with wildlife in mind. Staff and volunteers also carry out surveys and gather data to monitor how our local wildlife is doing. Beechcroft House, Vicarage Lane, Curdridge, Hampshire SO32 2DP Tel: 01489 774400 www.hwt.org.uk 88 www.visitislandlife.com Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight, which they achieve with wings formed from skin stretched across their specialised elongated hand bones. They are classified scientifically as Chiroptera, which means ‘hand-wing’. Feeding on insects at night, they live in a dark world, away from competition with day-flying birds but exposed to different challenges. Their eyes are small, so to find their way at night, they have developed a way of ‘seeing with sound’ – known as echolocation. By emitting high-pitched calls as they fly, bats can use the echoing sound waves to navigate in darkness and locate prey. Bats make their homes in dark, cool places such as trees, caves and houses, and hibernate over the winter due to the lack of their insect food. Bats in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Fourteen bat species are regularly recorded in the two counties. Here is a selection of the common and not so common species Common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle These two very similar species can be distinguished by the frequency of their calls. Very small bats, they occupy roof spaces, trees and bat boxes and are the most commonly recorded species. It has been found that, as well as calls, the two species can be separated by the habitat they prefer to feed around. The soprano pipistrelle likes to forage near water, whereas the common pipistrelle searches all over for food. Serotine This large bat is found in roof spaces of older buildings and occasionally tree holes. It forages in lowland pasture, parkland, woodland edge and hedgerows, and feeds on large beetles, larger moths and flies. It is restricted to southern Britain and south Wales. Noctule A medium-sized woodland bat, the noctule prefers to roost in woodpecker holes or rot holes in trees. It feeds on beetles, flies and moths in pastures next to woodland and over water. It occurs in England, Wales and southern Scotland.