New site: Daubenton's bat maternity colony located

 

 
 Daubenton's bats
 

Earlier this week three of us went to an undisclosed location in Barnes to assess an area thought to be used by Daubenton's bats. The bats were heard chittering during a survey by two Project officers working for the Friends of Barnes Common. They withdrew until someone with the requisite license could join them.

Nineteen bats were counted at three locations, including smaller fluffy individuals deemed to be juveniles. Judging by droppings and staining found elsewhere at the site, the nursery was slightly further to the south. 

There are not many maternity colonies of this species known in the Greater London area and hopefully we can monitor this roost using thermal cameras and static bat detection equipment. 

The location is naturally dark and we want to keep it that way by writing to the adjacent  landowners. Daubenton's bats require no/low levels of light to move along river corridors to foraging areas and alternative roost sites. 

This species has been  declining in the London region due to constant threats from development, habitat loss and fragmentation and light pollution such as this one at Seething-wells .

Researchers from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Wallingford and the Universities of Oxford and Exeter concluded that as groups use very small areas for their roosting needs, this species is vulnerable to even minor habitat changes.
 
In recent years, a large colony has been located in similar circumstances in NW London, and this has the potential to be of similar magnitude.


 
 An excellent find by Will and Tarun FoBC

More about local Daubenton's bats can be found here in this blog I have kept for a number of years on the maternity colony at Seething Wells and the environs: this includes habitat requirements, Daubenton's caught whilst harp trapping at the Thames Water Hogsmill nature reserve, found outside Tudor Williams and a bat found later to have the  Lyssavirus which came into care bentonbat.blogspot.com

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Please share your thoughts

Most viewed

Heritage Trees part 2: street trees.

Image
  Oaks and maples Cambridge Gardens 2019   Street trees can often be the most beautiful objects in our streets. They are important to their communities as well as having environmental benefits. They are a living history in our landscape and can have particular connections. They may be fragments of a previous landscape incorporated into a modern street scene, such as the oaks at Cambridge Gardens once  part of the Duke of Cambridge's estate.  A great read with information on how to research street trees is a  History of Street Trees by Dr. M. Johnston.  London plane trees CRE 1976 Beech tree, Chesterton Terrace 1976 Studies show that the difference in local tree cover can reflect the various socio-economic groups. In Victorian times middle class areas were planted with many street trees or had higher quality front gardens than working class districts; now referred to as 'green equity'. It can be demonstrated by looking at old photos of the seven roads that were
Read more

Fishing the Hogsmill

Image
Fly-fishing the Hogsmill   It is interesting to see the river from a different perspective: the Hogsmill is popular with anglers at this time of year; although it is unusual to see someone fly- fishing. A chub has just been caught on bread and it looks a good size. Trout are sometimes seen in the Hogsmill and can sit in the weir notch by the school. Our own Richard Jefferies in his book 'Nature Near London'  remarked on the Hogsmill trout as far up as Tolworth Hall Bridge (now the A240). chub    This fish was carefully unhooked and orientated in the swim where it soon finds it way - probably to the next father and son - sitting further upstream. These anglers have caught the 'ghost' koi within the last two weeks and appear to be the second successful pair to catch the pond-escapee in the last few days. Ghost koi are a British invention. They were produced by accident in the early 80’s when a farmer allowed a mirror carp and a koi to spawn together. The offspring
Read more

Seething Wells: they've done it again

Image
The last day of May, I went to see if I could find the black redstart that had been widely reported, no luck but it will turn up again on one of the old buildings. The lush vegetation was looking beautiful between the Filter Beds at Seething Wells. I made a note of the breeding birds: goldfinches twinkling away, blue tits gathering food, sand martins flying over the FB's (only two this year unfortunately) moorhens and some scruffy little coot chicks entangled in the algal blooms.   Proud parents were showing off their four Canada chicks; they can cover a lot of ground in a short space of time they were soon feeding on water pepper and bistort gleaned from  the ziggerat-sided basins. A song thrush sang from the wharf alongside greenfinches as well as the seasonal chiff chaff; although this year all numbers are down, reflecting not only the topsy-turvy Spring but also the continued tumble in insect numbers (even seed eating birds are dependent on insects to feed their young).
Read more