Natterer's Bats

Monika · #1 (**permalink**) 06-08-2009, 06:16 PM

A farmer friend has a lot of pipistrelles around his farm and barns but with them seem to be some obviously larger bats. I think they could be Natterer's. Is there a particular distinguishing feature to look out for in flight?

The farm is in the Yorkshire Dales, not far from Skipton, but isolated and surrounded by pasture and some broad-leaved woods.

Dogghound · #2 (**permalink**) 06-08-2009, 06:35 PM

The habitat and location are both spot on. This species has a habit of flying with its tail held down towards the ground when it flies, this may be worth looking for.

canis.rufus · #3 (**permalink**) 07-08-2009, 12:34 PM

Hiya,

Natterer's bats also have a white belly, which is sometimes visible in the twilight.

Identifying flying species by sight can be quite difficult, the best thing would probably be to find someone with a bat detector to listen to their echolocation.

However, Natterer's are one of a group of five species (Myotis bats) which all have white belly's and sound the same on a bat detector. If you really want to know, is there a local bat group you could involve?

Good luck - Toby.

canis.rufus · #4 (**permalink**) 07-08-2009, 02:43 PM

Hey guys,

Sorry for the double post, but this seemed like an excellent opportunity to "pimp" this photo of a Natterer's in flight. which I took at a roost a few weeks ago.

Bat from Tree Roost on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I am still working on this technique, as the IQ of the results isn't great at the moment. Photographing bats from a tree roost is especially hard as it is difficult to find them as the bats are transitory and the roosts are hard to check. Sixty bats flew from the roost that night, four days later none. We only knew they were there because some of the bats were radio tagged.

You might also be able to make out that this bat has a ring; it is wild, but is part of an ongoing ringing scheme in the woods.

V. sorry for the threadjack,