October - Bat Awareness Month
October is Bat Awareness Month, where this often-misjudged mammal is celebrated in all its glory. Bat Week also falls in October between the 24th and the 31st.
Bats often get a bad reputation because of their connection to Halloween and the supernatural. In folklore they are often associated with darkness, death and all that is spooky. However, Bat Awareness Week hopes to clear up some of these misconceptions and share a love for bats.
Worldwide there are over 1,400 species of bat. With 18 of these found in the UK, and all but one of those 18 species known to breed in the UK.
Bats can be found in a range of habitats from water to woodlands and more urban settings as well. Although you often won’t see these nocturnal animals, whilst we are sleeping bats are busy carrying out a key role within our ecosystems.
Bats are vital for controlling and monitoring insect populations. All the UK bat species are insectivores, so they spend their nights eating insects, spiders, moths and more. This service is useful for insect control within agriculture and even gardens. According to the Wildlife Trust, ‘a single common pipistrelle can catch and eat around 3,000 insects each night’!
All this insect-eating also makes bats very useful for monitoring. They are known as indicator species. This means they are relatively easy to monitor and their presence in an area can tell us about the ecosystem within that area. Being so reliant on insects, an abundance of bats can suggest a healthy and sustaining insect population – which forms the basis of many ecosystems and food chains. Similarly, they can show when insect populations are in decline, a problem which is being seen more and more.
Bats face a lot of challenges including habitat loss to development, more intensive and changing agricultural practices, bat roost destruction, pesticide use, poor water quality, and insect decline to name a few.
However, there is hope for bats. There have been successful conservation projects to help bats recover and there are lots of things we can do to help.
We can plant insect friendly plants in our gardens to encourage the insect populations and in turn the bats.
We can help spread awareness and understanding of bats to friends, family, neighbours and the local area.
Why not join a bat walk or bat group near you, go bat detecting and learn more about these unique mammals?
Have a look at the Herts and Middlesex, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Bat groups using the following links:
Herts and Middlesex Bat Group
Bedfordshire Bat Group | Web site of the Bedfordshire Bat Group
Cambridgeshire Bat Group
You can also find more information about bats, what to do if you find a bat in trouble, Bat Awareness Month, future events and more, at the Bat Conservation and Bat Week websites below.
Home - Bat Conservation Trust
Home - Bat Week