EBG Clothing!!

For prices & an order form see Page 6 of the Autmn Newsletter.
We are now able to offer fleeces, sweatshirts, polo shirts and gillets carrying
the EBG logo. All are in navy blue and are individually embroidered with our
evocative logo of a bat flying over water under a full moon.

Bat Care.

Sue Burton relates aspects of a hectic 2011!

The Bat Hospital and Ambulance Drivers have been working flat out this season in what has
proved a busier than normal year. We have collected bats from all sorts of predicaments and
situations, including:
The usual collection of cat casualties, a bat hit by a car, one poisoned by paint fumes, three
found in a police station, one in a pond, one in a water butt and one came down a chimney. We
collected 11 from one spare bedroom, 18 from a children’s nursery and one bat who was flying
around in a school assembly hall at the same time as they had a birds of prey demonstration
going on!
We have driven hundreds of miles day and night, collecting bats from around the county and
sometimes beyond. They all need feeding and caring for and some require veterinary
treatment. Due to the sheer numbers this season, we have had to tie up ambulance drivers
with feeding and caring for them with Jan, while others have been on the road and another
group have been overseeing the flight cage. We have all been involved in releasing bats back
into the wild. This is my third season and each year gets busier!
On top of all this work, we look for and try to identify roosts and advise people. We strongly
believe that any bat that is grounded needs help – sometimes they are injured, other times
they are starving and/or dehydrated. A few days of care and they can often be in a fit state
for release. It is important that they are released as soon as possible at the site where they
were found, as they know the roosts.
We have a great team of people working hard to directly help grounded and injured bats and
to encourage and foster respect for these creatures. I am proud to be part of this dedicated
group of people. If you want to get involved with the bat care side of Essex Bats Group’s
invaluable work, please contact Jan Ragg on 07734 265571 or Sue Burton on 07973 716318.
A full account of the year will appear in a future edition of the newsletter.

Bat Care.............. A summary for 2010 by Sue Burton

The season started off quite slowly with babies, that usually appear in June, not appearing until
July, but once the season did start then it went crazy. We dealt with more calls than previous
years including:- A Serotine found starving in a church lobby in the spring, a Brown Long Eared
caught up in goose grass and starving, a Nathusius’ Pipistrelle found in a Sainsbury's ware-
house, pipistrelles caught up in a cobweb, on a thistle, on a flypaper, babies were found in
various places (on a window sill, behind a sofa in a garage, on a guinea pig hutch, in the kitchen)
and one mum and baby pipistrelle found by a toddler in her paddling pool. Mum had obviously
become grounded trying to save junior and both ended up in difficulty.
We thought we had a baby Serotine, though it turned out to be a pip who was nearly fully
grown but had got into trouble and was totally bald and covered in sticky gunge and cobwebs.
Roger & Sylvia found a juvenile in a beer cellar during a roost visit. A lady even 'roosted' a
casualty in her hair!! Twenty dead and starving pipistrelles were found in a church but we had
two babies born in captivity - a pipistrelle and a Leisler’s (see below). There were 36 casualties
in September; two or three times as many as in previous years. Things have usually calmed
down by then. All in all it has been an interesting if not exhausting season!

A Day In The Life of.............You never know quite
what is going to happen in this job!! We had a call at the
beginning of October regarding a bat found on a container
ship that had just arrived in Felixstowe Port from Turkey.
The Ports Authority and Council Animal Health Officer de-
tained the illegal immigrant and wanted the bat identified.
Bat Care Co-ordinator Jan Ragg traveled to meet the Animal
Health Officer in a police station cell – it needed to be a
secure site but maybe not that secure!! It proved to be a
male Nathusius. The females migrate south west in August
and the males follow in September and October. After examination Jan felt that this was a British bat who had became exhausted because of the bad weather, so he was allowed into the country!! The bat was very underweight but he soon recovered and was released at Keith and Andy's Nathusius study site in Epping Forest.

Leisler's Surprise..........Essex Bat Group Ambulance Drivers were amazed to hear that
the grounded Leisler’s they collected in Chelmsford in June gave birth in captivity a few weeks
later. The female baby had flight training in various different cages including the Harlow
flight cage, a huge chicken shed (minus the chickens) and the Bedford Bat Group poly tunnel.
Bat Care News
Mother and (foreground) baby [Photo: Sue Burton]
It has been an amazing effort from everyone
to give her the best chance of release. She was
released in August. Our thanks go to Bedford
Bat Group for use of their poly tunnel and
Roger and Sylvia for use of their poultry shed!
And to Jan Ragg for the hours of care she has
put into this little creature.

Developers prosecuted for destruction of a bat roost.

In October 2009 a developer and a demolition company were found guilty at Colchester Magistrates Court of destroying a bat roost.

Hills Residential Construction was fined £2,000 with £115 costs and North East Demolition UK was fined £1,500 with £115 costs for committing an offence under the Conservation (Natural Habitats etc) Regulations 1994; namely destroying a breeding site or resting place of brown long-eared bats at Blue Barn Farm, Elmstead Market.
Prior to the offence taking place, a bat survey had been undertaken as part of a proposal to re-develop an agricultural outbuilding at the site.

John Dobson, who carried out the survey, sent us the following account for inclusion on the Website:

“In September 2006, I conducted a bat survey on a barn at Elmstead Market in north east Essex and found droppings and feeding remains consistent with the building being used by brown long-eared bats. At first sight, the building was a large contemporary grain store but a small timber-framed barn had been adsorbed into the south west corner of the structure, with access to the barn being achieved by walking through the grain store. The report recommended further surveys to determine the bat population involved and said that a European Protected Species Licence would be required. An exchange of emails that autumn with the architect showed possible mitigation options, with new roosts being sited in roof voids.”
“In June 2008, I drove past the site and found that the barn had been demolished. Neither Natural Eengland’s licensing department, nor the local authority, had any evidence that a licence had been obtained and I reported the incident to the police.”

Luxury Bat Roost Box Arrives at Essex Wildlife Trust Hanningfield Reservoir Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve.

The Essex Wildlife Trust Visitor Centre has just taken delivery of a state of the art bat roost box worth £1000 - designed, built and donated by Maurice Webber of Conservation Constructions ltd. The box has been attached to the top of a telegraph pole, which is positioned outside the visitor centre, close to the location of the existing maternity roost of soprano pipistrelle bats. The Hanningfield Visitor Centre has been host to a maternity bat roost for the last three years, with over 470 bats using the roof of the visitor centre each year. Female bats gather in the Maternity Roost April - October and give birth to their pups. After 4 weeks old the pups start to be weaned and begin to venture out of the roost and learn to fly and catch small flying insects on the wing. During the autumn the bats leave the maternity roost and find a suitable site to hibernate over the colder months. The Claughton family carry out fortnightly counts of the roost, counting the bats as they emerge one by one out of the roof apex.

This data is important and shows that the number of bats using the roost has increased each year. The fitting of the telegraph pole and box was done by Rob and Martyn from Cable and Line, who gave their time and resources free of charge. The bat roost box is made from wood, and has a tiled roof and front. The box has a range of small entrances, which lead into a wide range of layered compartments and sections, which will appeal to a number of species of bat. We are hoping that in addition to the building the bats will make use of the roost box to raise their young. We will then insert an infra red camera into the box, which will transmit live images of the bats to a screen in the visitor centre.
Hanningfield Visitor Centre is arranging a number of events where members of the public can use a bat detector to hear the echolocation of bats and help count the bats out of the roost at dusk.
Come and celebrate 50 years of Essex Wildlife Trust viewing the bats fly from their roost at Hanningfield Visitor Centre on Saturday 22nd August 7.45 - 8.45pm FREE event. Bring along a camp chair and refreshments.
For this event no booking is required.
Contact 01268 711001 for more information or view all our events at www.essexwt.org.uk.