Friends of the Litten Reserve    

The bat walk was a great success thanks to a good number of keen ‘bat hunters’ and the excellent presentation of James Morton. We began at the Litten classroom where James gave lots of info on bats, their hunting skills, how to use the detectors and what to look out forWe took to the reserve to see what we could find. Being late in the year for bats we only detected one on the reserve itself however we did hear an owl which we suspect was a tawny owl which is a great find.

We then headed to Ravenor park where we thought we may have more luck and in fact heard at least ten bats, one Common pipistrelle did a nice display for us coming back and forth through the detectors so everyone could hear the clicks as it swooped on insects.

Thanks to Malcolm for being the host and making teas etc. I think next time we need to schedule the event a bit earlier in the season. And it occurred to me that I should have brought some visual aids of bats…Oscar is there anything your students would like to create regarding bats and bat pictures? We can look at putting up some bat boxes, (we have kits at the ranger base)

Thanks again to everyone involved.

Jon Staples

Park Ranger – Greenford Green and Northolt Mandeville wards