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.