20% for Wildlife Group organise a Batty Evening

On the last weekend in April Kirkheaton residents were invited to join the 20% Wildlife group to make bat boxes and even see and identify some of these nocturnal creatures with the aid of bat detectors.

Clare Walters of Kirkheaton 20% for Wildlife writes:
We had a lovely sunny – if cold – day for our bat event. We met at St John’s Church field with all the ingredients to make bat roost boxes. Children were helped to make up boxes from kits which they took home. As they need to be put 4M or higher, we will have another event later in the summer where we can put any unhomed boxes up in trees in the Orchard.

We then had a 20% for Wildlife meeting at the Beaumont Arms and this was followed by a bat walk at dusk. We had a good number of children and they enjoyed using the bat detectors to see what was about. The bats performed well, with a cheeky pipistrelle following us along Ox Field Beck catching the midges that were attracted to our body heat.

We recorded and saw several common pipistrelles, a noctule bat and possibly a nathusius pipistrelle which is a rare find. We have reported it the the West Yorkshire bat group who will be coming out to verify our records.

The next Kirkheaton 20% for Wildlife meeting is on May 30th at 7.30 at the community centre. Please join us there to plan what else we ca do to encourage wildlife into our gardens- all welcome.

We are taking some more bat box kits and some wildflower seed packs to the Jubilee Picnic on 4th June, come along and talk to us!

 

Clare Walters