|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
I remember swimming with a flock of brown pelicans in the sea on Miami Beach in 1990. It was a wonderful experience. The content of this post about the grey long eared bat is an abstract from the blog, ‘Back from the Brink’. It brought the Miami memories back and is a beautiful website I am pleased to recommend to my readers.
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Listed as Near Threatened under criteria A2c on the ICUN Red List of Threatened Species, the population of the grey long-eared bat in Europe and the south- coast of England is decreasing. The information in this post is curated from the IUCN Red List, and is intended to raise awareness of the bat’s plight.
Where do grey long eared bats live?
The species is found in the countryside and villages. Maternity colonies are mostly found in old houses with large attics.
Its favourite roosting place is on or above the ridge beam or behind rafters. Bats can be found in these roosts throughout the year, though numbers are higher in the summer. The nurseries usually comprise 10-30, but in some cases also up to 180 females.
Besides buildings, the bats hibernate in cellars, caves, mines and other types of underground hibernacula.
Where do grey long eared bats forage?
They forage above meadows, uncultivated fields, unimproved meadows, marshes, in open forests and at forest edges and in more urbanised areas, such as orchards and parks. And avoid arable fields, conifer woods and open water. In the country grey long eared bats use more natural habitats like field margins, hedges and scattered trees. The species usually hunts in feeding areas close to the roost but can sometimes up to 5.5 km away.
What do grey long eared bats eat?
These intelligent, enchanting little creatures are among the UK’s rarest mammals. The most common prey components are Lepidoptera, followed by Diptera. They hunt for moths and other insects by night over wildflower meadows along the south coast of England. They live long and are social, the females giving birth to their single babies in maternity roosts. But there could be as few as one thousand grey long-eared bats left. And we know their numbers are falling.
Why are they decreasing in number?
The kind of grassland these bats need has been lost from most of the countryside in the last century. And the elements they require in the landscape have become more fragmented. It is difficult for them to find safe routes between their roosts and where they find food. That’s why they are struggling to survive.
How Back from the Brink will help the grey long-eared bat
The Back from the Brink project, led by the Bat Conservation Trust will work with landowners. Together they will discover how to retain and enhance the precious habitats that the bats need. They want to find ways to connect the patches that remain, and keep the grasslands in good health.
Back from the Brink hope to inspire people to provide bats with a secure home. Giving talks, taking walks and farm open days will help people understand the bats and what they need. And support and advice will help them to achieve it. Working with local authorities to ensure the needs of these bats is considered in planning how land is used.
What they were aiming for
By the end of the project, Back from the Brink aimed to have raised understanding of grey long-eared bats and their needs, making sure they had good quality habitat. The species is an indicator of the health of the landscape, and the work is essential to prevent it from being lost.
How to get involved
Anyone can help monitor the grey long eared bats, or help to ensure they have the habitat they desperately need.
The latest news and information about upcoming events can be found here.
Other posts you may like
There is an abundance of wildlife in Thailand, where I live, and I have written about some of my encounters. I am intrigued by the occassional interaction between humans and wildlife and I recorded two incidents which moved me in these posts. One about a common myna fledgeling and the other about two gibbons.
CLICK TO READ OTHER ‘BACK FROM THE BRINK POSTS’
Related Posts
Join Us
If you enjoyed this Blog, we would like to offer you FOUR of James King’s books and our Newsletter as a gift.