Aline has pointed out that on the Ceredigion bird blog http://ceredigionbirds33.blogspot.com/ there has been mention of bats being seen out and about very recently and is concerned that they may have been disturbed. As I understand it, and I might be completely wrong here, male bats will come out and about late into the autumn/winter if the weather is clement; mating goes on even when the females are asleep sometime - shameful behaviour. The conditions would have to be good for the bats to replenish the energy lost however so coming out in the day in this type of weather does seem to be at odds and a bit worrying. Can anyone throw any light on this behaviour please?
Net
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Hi, I have just returned from teaching a course at Plas Tanybwlch in Snowdonia. With the all the snow and ice we didn't expect to be seeing any active bats, but on Thursday evening I was on the phone to Shelley from the conservatory and saw the unmistakeable outline of a lesser horseshoe flying on to the boiler room. The temp was up to about 6 C. On friday we went to the little stone waiting room at Plas Halt; fresh droppings - almost certainly the night before. Obviously that small window of warmth after the big freeze was enough for some bats to go out feeding (and/or drinking, tho' the presence of droppings tells us the feeding was successful!). I don't think this is unusual in the winter - it doesn't take much warmth to wake some bugs up. We used torches to look from the ground into some of the bat boxes; one had two noctule bats in, which were instantly aware of us, so they were not hibernating either. Rich
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