Bats are not birds. Bats are not mice. Bats are simply - Bats!! Here our friends at Bat Conservation Ireland are going to tell us a lot more about these little creatures.
Bats make up one quarter of the world's mammals. Being mammals, they feed their young on milk, they have hair and they give birth to small copies of themselves, not eggs.
All Irish bats eat insects. In a single night, a pipistrelle bat can eat as many as three thousand small insects including midges, mosquitoes, tiny moths and tiny beetles. Bats have an extraordinary lifestyle that includes hanging upside down, sleeping in the daytime and sleeping for much of the winter (hibernating).
Bats are tiny, fluffy, harmless little creatures that sometimes make their home in the top of our homes. A bat's home is called a roost. In summer, female bats gather together in a suitable building, tree, bridge or other site to give birth to their single babies.
This is called a maternity roost (like a maternity hospital for bats). This may be even be your house, your garage or a tree in your garden. If you watch carefully as it gets dark, you may see a little trail of bats making their way off to feed. This starts just after sunset for most bats and can continue for an hour or more in some cases. Before dawn, bats have made their way back home. Just before they head off to bed, they sometimes do several laps of their home, tapping against the entrance before they finally enter and settle down to sleep.
The single annual baby is born in June or July and by August has learned to fly, catch insects and make its way back to its roost. Before they can feed for themselves, the mother provides their single babies with milk. When they head off to feed, they leave the baby in a creche where they sometimes get up to mischief and wander off to explore their surroundings. This is when many bats enter bedrooms or sitting rooms and pandemonium ensues.
If a bat enters your house, don't panic! Open the window as wide as it will go, pull the curtains back, switch off the light and leave the room, closing the door behind you. In most cases, the bat will make its own way out.
In Ireland we have nine species and perhaps we have one or two more that are yet to be discovered. The bats that you will most likely see are pipistrelles. There are three species of pipistrelle of which the common pipistrelle is the most widespread. Soprano pipistrelles form the largest roosts of bats in Ireland and often live near to water (such as lakes, rivers, ponds and marshy area).
Our largest bat, Leisler's bat, is often out before sunset and may be seen flying high in the open. This species is one of our most important as it forms larger roosts here than in the rest of Europe.
Nathusius' pipistrelle forms large colonies in County Antrim but has only been found in small numbers south of the border.
Bats are busy at the moment seeking out partners before they finally settle down to sleep through the colder, wetter winter when insects are less abundant. They choose cool, damp places to sleep and this is usually a different spot to their summer maternity roosts.
Bats need your help to guarantee that they can continue to flutter around in the night sky.
For kids go to https://www.learnaboutbats.com/.
And grown-ups can visit http://www.batconservationireland.org/.
