Bats About!

Having heard recently from a friend in Wales that he had noctule and common pipistrelle bats around his house in the previous week and as we had such a warm and beautiful day on Sunday, I thought it might be a good time to go out with the bat detector that night (9th March), to see if any of our local bats have started to become active.

Sure enough I had quite a bit of activity from common pipistrelle/pipistrelle species amounting to at least four individuals, recorded at the back of my house, down Church lane and towards the bottom of the village. Some of the echolocation calls were accompanied by social calls. These are the lower frequency calls shown in the Analook sonogram below. The mean peak frequency of the main call is 48.63 kHz, which falls within the upper range of common pipistrelle, many of the other calls recorded ranged from 49-51kHz which is borderline between upper range common and lower range soprano pipistrelle, so calls recorded at these frequencies are usually put down as pipistrelle species.

Common Pipistrelle Analook