Notes and Observations 12 Part 2

Page 1

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS F L I G H T OF PIPISTRELLES (P. pipistrellus). Between June and November, in both 1960 and 1961 we watched Pipistrelles feeding over a rubbish tip on Framlingham Aerodrome. DĂźring the summer they appeared as dusk turned to darkness in very considerable numbers. We could not count them in the darkness but in the light of car headlights the place seemed to be alive with bats : there may well have been a hundred or so Aying. After mid-September as the nights got cooler a small number, usually half a dozen or less, flew much earlier and with a more direct and purposeful flight than is usual. T h e more numerous late comers had the ordinary fluttering, zig-zag flight of a pipistrelle amidst an abundance of insects. We caught a number of these " early fliers " ; all were pipistrelles. A large number of housecrickets was Aying from the tip ; these were being caught in large numbers by noctules. We could not see what was the main prey of the pipistrelles but it seemed to consist mainly of small insects. Very often however a pipistrelle would be seen to take a cricket when subsequent events could not be seen. Sometimes it would drop it to pick it up again as it feil, occasionally repeating the dropping and catching two or three times, sometimes catching the cricket, dropping it and Aying on. On a number of occasions a pipistrelle seized a cricket, closed its wings partially and feil three or four feet through the air to recover and fly on, sometimes apparently with the cricket still in its mouth, sometimes after dropping it. That pipistrelles attack crickets was obvious : how far they are able to master the larger ones was difficult to be certain. EVENING

H.

G.

BARRETT, CRANBROOK, G t .

Glemham.

PIPISTRELLES IN CHURCH. In January, 1962, pipistrelles were again found behind the panels in Snape Church. With 32 pipistrelles was one larger bat which escaped before it could be identified with certainty, but it seemed to be Natterer's. MRS. HARRISON, Snape.

CAT

SUCKLING YOUNG R A T .

Early

in

November,

1961,

my

dog dug up a nest of hairless young rats, killing the mother and scattering the babies with the nest material. I gave the babies to a freshly kitted cat to eat. A couple of days later looking at the kittens I found a young rat sucking at the cat alongside them. Annoyed at this disturbance the mother cat moved the whole litter, rat included, to another place. T h e rat continued to suck with the kittens until it was about § grown when one day I found that it had gone. J. SPALL, Gt. Glemham.


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Notes and Observations 12 Part 2 by Suffolk Naturalists' Society - Issuu