Bats and lighting
Brown Long Eared bat photo S. Sivanesan This brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) is one of the bats brought into care last year as it weighed only 4g - half optimum. We still have a small population of this species along the Thames, due to the ideal habitat provided at Home and Bushy Park Site of Special Scientific Interest. Plecotus bats are light - shy, along with the genus Myotis (Daubenton's bats) and are at a competative disadvantage with those bat species, which fly and foragage over more open habitats. This means that they are special in London. Recently, Richmond Council placed 20 cowls onto the the luminiares overlooking the Wick Pond to reduce the light spillage onto the water. We are not so lucky in Kingston, where development along the river has led to light pollution noticeably reducing the number of bat (and other nocturnal) species -and their abundance- routinely recorded along the Thames at Canbury Gardens and Queens Promenade, ...