Getting to know the bats of St Giles Hill

PHOTO: Bat walk participants assemble at the Viewpoint in. St Giles Hill Park at sunset, 24 August 2024.

Twenty-two guests joined the first Bat Walk organised by the Friends of St Giles Hill Park on Saturday 24 August and enjoyed multiple close encounters with the Park's resident bats. Harry Mycock, Chair of the Friends, welcomed guests from across the city and as far afield as the Cotswolds, and on cue the bats turned out above the group as they assembled at the Viewpoint. Pipestrelle and the separate species of Soprano Pipestrelle were well represented as they went about their business of feeding.

Detection was enhanced by using a bat detection device and software to convert the high pitch echolocation sounds that the bats make to find food and navigate into a version of the sound at a level that we humans could both hear and see on screen in a graphical spectrogram interpretation of the sound.  

Each tiny Pipestrelle, which at rest would fit into a matchbox, flew up above us all with wings unfolded to a 200mm (9 inch) span and each would be eating up to 3000 insects a night.  With some light was still in the sky the fleeting silhouettes of these great creatures was a joy to watch.

In the future it is hoped to undertake a thorough Bat Survey of St Giles Hill Park and take measures to support the conservation of bats locally.  As a part of this, further talks and walks are anticipated.

PHOTO: Participants in the bat walk.

PHOTO: Spectogram of bat sounds captured during the Bat Walk. The device enables the sound made by bats to be converted into ones that humans can hear, and shows the sound graphically on screen i8n real time. The x axis maps the sound in milliseconds and the y axis the frequency in kilohertz.