Out with Stuart from the Lothians and Borders Bat Group tonight to count the numbers in a roost in the loft space of a house. Quite an exciting prospect as we had never done anything like this before and we looked forward in anticipation on the drive out to Livingston. After meeting up with Stuart we headed to the house which was a fairly old building with a gable end and sloping roof and apparently the bats sqeezed through the tiniest gap between the wall and the roof to get in and out of their roost - we are talking millimetres so that is amazing!
Stuart issued us with counters and a bat detector and we settled down in our deckchairs to wait at about 930pm. Unfortunately it was a very still and damp night and the midges were out in force and on the attack! Anyway we covered ourselves up and waited......then the first bat duly appeared at 945pm and flew off! They then started coming out in 1's, 2's and 3's and eventually larger numbers and we were clicking away furiously on our counters....100, ......200, .......300.....and eventually up to 354 bats!! It was a great experience but a bit tricky in the fading light as some bats already out were flying near the entrance to the building so it was a bit tricky counting them at times. Stuart was quite encouraging to us newbies so all in all a good evening despite the menacing midges!
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