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www.bradleystokejournal.co.uk
October 2017
t: 01454 300 400
News
Three Brooks nature reserve in September By Sara Messenger, Three Brooks Nature Conservation Group
Conservation group members Gill Smith (left) and Sara Messenger (right) present a copy of ‘Bobby the Brown Long-Eared Bat’’ to librarian Sarah
crickets whose chirping is at a similar pitch to the bats! If you have missed our walks, you don’t have to miss out completely as at Bradley Stoke Library we have ten bat detectors available for loan, complete with guides and leaflets written by our own Gill Smith and John Morris. If you head off on your own
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we’d suggest you choose a dry night. Remember to wear sturdy footwear and take a torch (please don’t shine it at the bats) and be mindful that the leisure centre car park closes at 10pm! To celebrate the 21st International Bat Night, we have also donated to the library the children’s book ‘Bobby the Brown
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being surprisingly knowledgeable on the subject. Although we found many bats that evening, we again found none over the lake, which is usually teeming with pipistrelles, which are the smallest bat we have on the reserve. Whether this is to do with the tunnelling works there or the low level of water we’re not sure, and as the works won’t finish until after the bats have gone into hibernation, we won’t know until next year Four types of bat can be found on our reserve: pipistrelle, soprano, Daubenton’s and noctule. We found that if you point the detectors down into the long grass you can hear quite a lot going on, however it’s not a new breed of ‘grass bat’ that you’ve discovered, but the
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Thanks to the generosity of Bradley Stoke Town Council, our ‘bat walks’, unlike those in many other places, are free to the public – although I’m sure their continued popularity has as much to do with Avon Bat Group’s Stewart Rowdon’s engaging manner as with the walks being accessible to everyone. After telling us some batty tales and sharing out the bat detectors, Stewart led 25 of us off into the darkness to see what we could find. We didn’t get very far, as we discovered that the bats were using the large oak tree in the grounds of the leisure centre as a roost, so we stopped there. Several of the lads from the skate park came over to see what we were up to with a couple of them
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All things batty!
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