Downgatebatman

  HANGING INSULATED BAT BOXES.   Back in 1994 I set up 15 conventional wooden bat boxes, hung three to a tree, in a valley-bottom, mixed deciduous woodland that Cornwall Wildlife Trust owns in East Cornwall. I’d no clear idea of the purpose other than to see what bats might be there. It was good old woodland so I didn’t expect to get many bats in the boxes as I thought they would prefer the opportunities offered by the habitat. (In those days we generally only had heterodyne detectors, so acoustic surveying wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now.) But then I advertised the annual October inspection among my friends in a natural history group I was involved with, as well as our Cornwall Bat Group. So I was able to demonstrate wild bats in the hand. This morphed into training sessions for prospective volunteer bat roost visitors. And in 2010 I added another annual inspection in May.   A bottom-opening, cubic wooden box with Brown Long-eared Bats.   Take-up ...