The dog walkers regard us with suspicion. Perhaps they think we’re ravers, assembled in the car park just before sunset. While admittedly there is a van loaded with speakers and kit, the only stimulants you’ll find are coffee and cake. I’ve joined the South Lancashire Bat Group and friends who are monitoring rare Nathusius’ pipistrelles in Marbury Country Park.
With the traps and acoustic lures set among the vegetation, we’re sitting patiently in camping chairs along the nearby path, watching the sun cast an apricot glaze across the mere. The bats begin to throw some shapes once the colour drains from the day. They are frenetic while they feast, whirling around the tree tops. We see them through breaks in the canopy, gorging on the tiny insects that cloud around the oaks and alders at the lake’s edge.
The volunteers are soon on their feet, scooping bats from traps with gentle gloved hands. A fold-out table is the command centre, a hubbub of measurements, weights, genital descriptions, wing membrane patterns, ear shapes. All identifying marks are recorded to boost the data banks of the Bat Conservation Trust. We encounter soprano and common pipistrelles, noctules and whiskered bats.
As the evening glides into night I have to shrug on another layer. The sky is open and all the heat is escaping. Fortunately, our target species isn’t overly sensitive to late summer’s changeable temperatures, and I’m eventually able to look one in its black-bead eyes.
Although it is the largest of the pipistrelles, the Nathusius is no bigger than a matchbox. Thick brown fur wraps around its back, paler underneath. Its wings are as thin as tissue paper, but with a gummy texture. Its dark ears are like felted triangles, and a short muzzle completes the look of a teddy bear with wings.
The bat gains a little metal ring, delicately placed on the boned edge of the wing to ensure minimum disturbance. If it meets the group again it will be welcomed as an old friend. It takes extra effort to get to know our secretive bat species but, judging by the good humour of this crowd, it’s a rewarding gig.
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