Wildlife Circus

During spells of  wet weather in the summer bats can find it difficult to get out to feed. If this occurs over several evenings they can quickly lose condition.  This week it has started to rain at dusk, just at the time bats emerge to forage around local parks and gardens. This male common pipistrelle was found near to the Fishponds along the Ewell Road in Surbiton suffering from dehydration. Hopefully he will regain condition and pass his fitness test by the weekend to be released on his home patch.  If you find a grounded bat please put it in a box (with a few holes) and a small amount of water in a lid. Please use a glove (as per photo) to gently handle it. Then call the Bat Conservation Trust, 0345 1300 228, who will arrange for someone to come and collect it.

Hydro have engaged a new ecological consultancy, EDP, to undertake this seasons ecological surveys at the Filter Beds. Natural England have advised that 'the consultants should demonstrate how bats are using the basins as a foraging area at optimal conditions'. The council have engaged their own expert from Baker, Shepherd and Gillespie to advise on the process. This means that the Filter Beds should be full of natural water and the early surveys should achieve adequate spring temperatures and not these inclement <10 degrees we are currently experiencing. It is up to us to monitor the level of water in the basins, by  maintaining an accurate record of photographic evidence. The previous consultants produced misleading reports showing summer bat surveys with basins full of water, yet there were no leaves on the trees in the photographs. It is likely that the new surveys and tweaking of the design (emphasis on a dark corridor for bat foraging) will be presented in A...

The new Bat Survey Guidelines are available from the Bat Conservation Trust here  Bat Survey Guidelines These specifically wanted to  end the practice whereby some consultants (and sometimes SNCO's and LPA's) concentrated on the number of surveys (insisting on three) rather than the seasonal sampling of bats throughout the active period (Spring, Summer, Autumn). In the previous (2007) case a consultant could say that they had complied with the three survey requirement, having actually only carried out three surveys on consecutive nights. This is not a reasonable sampling effort. The new Guidelines make it clear that a dusk and dawn survey in a 24 hour period is one survey, not two as some have interpreted. Given that the level of scrutiny from LPA's on methodology is  limited  and some consultants seem to have been keen to try and 'get round' things as there are many incentives to do so, BCT hopes that this will clarify matters.  Also new: Analysi...