Bat Conservation Trust: Working for Norfolk’s Bats

Tuesday, 9 April 2024

Working for Norfolk’s Bats

by Jane Harris and the Norfolk & Norwich Bat Group

On March 9^th, Norfolk and Norwich Bat Group held a mini-conference ‘Working for Norfolk’s Bats’ to highlight some of the bat conservation issues of particular importance in the county and to showcase the work of the group. The conference was also designed to show members who were neither consultants nor licensed bat workers, how they could get involved with bat conservation. To achieve these aims, the format was three presentations with half-hourly intervals, during which attendees were encouraged to look at the poster displays and engage with committee members to learn about these opportunities.

The first presentation was on ‘the Barbastelle super-colony’ which is threatened by a major road-building scheme in Norfolk, and was presented by Dr Charlotte Packman who has studied the colony in great detail for five years. Phil Parker gave the second presentation aptly entitled ‘ Norfolk’s churches – are they purpose-built bat roosts’ which stimulated great interest from members keen to survey their local church. Finally, Jane Harris presented ‘Nathusius’ pipistrelle – resident and marathon migrant’ which was a summary of the group’s work on this species and included migration studies using the MOTUS wildlife tracking system.

Poster displays included the National Bat Monitoring Programme, borrowing a bat detector, searching for new hibernation sites, surveying churches, helping with bat walks and events and training to help with emergence surveys and radio-tracking on the barbastelle and Nathusius’ pipistrelle projects.

Feedback was very positive and we hope to build on the success. Furthermore, we raised funds from ticket sales, the raffle and sales of homemade cakes which will help towards a major project to secure and protect one of the county’s best hibernation sites.