One afternoon, as my son and I came in from the garden, we noticed a small ball of fluff huddled down in the doorway. It took my brain a second or two to work out what I was looking at as it was covered in cobwebs. A small bat lay there looking very limp and lifeless. It clear wasn’t having the best time on our doorstep and it was the middle of the day so I knew this little creature needed our help.
Now having done my own fair share of raptor conservation and rehab I knew that if I was to actually help it I needed advice and support from bat experts! If it has feathers I have the skillset to give some basic care, but in this scenario I needed advice from a specialist as I’ve never had anything to do with bats unless sitting in the garden watching them wizz round my head counts!
After a quick good I quickly found myself on the Bat Conservation Trust’s website on a very useful page named “Help! I’ve Found A Bat“. After reading the incredible advice I located a small carboard box and gently scooped the bat inside with a towel so that I didn’t touch it with my bare hands. Some species of bats carry rabies so it is very important to handle them with care. The website made it very clear that I should phone them for help once I had contained the bat, so I did!
I was soon talking to a lovely, helpful woman who asked about what had happened and what we had done so far. Our nearest vet is nearly 40 minutes away so I quietly was hoping that the bat had gone on a bit of a mis-adventure rather than was ill or injured. Of course I would have driven it to the vet if required!
The woman on the phone then explained that they actually had a whole network of volunteers that could receive callouts to bats in need. This is a truly amazing service to be able to provide. I lamented to her that we were in fact in rural Scotland and it was unlikely that anyone was too close by as we had few neighbours as it is. To our surprise and delight she actually managed to find two people within about 30 minutes drive of us and she gave me their names and phone numbers. I was advised to contact both and hopefully one would be able to assist me further.
So barely 20 minutes into our bat recue mission I found myself talking to a very knowledgeable chap. He was actually working with bats professionally at a local university, where they also had their own colony of bats. While he was very keen to help, he was actually unable to attend himself as there had to be a separation of time between handling wild bats and interacting with the colony at the university. However we were in luck as his wife was also suitably trained. “I’ve just had a call on the bat phone” he remarked to his wife while I waited patiently. “Can you go instead?”
A couple of hours later as the dark began to draw in there was a knock on our door. The bat rescue team had arrived! The woman had brought her eldest daughter along too, to gain experience in callouts. If we don’t teach our children to care for nature, then who will! I welcomed them in and scurried off to get my bat in its box.
Reaching into her bag for a small weighing scale, she carefully scooped the bat up giving it the ‘once over’. She firstly informed me he was a male common pipistrelle bat, and a young one at that. Apparently young male bats are kicked out of maternity colonies and have to go it alone, which was what may have happend here. She gently stretched out each wing to check for damage and weighed him. She explained everything she did and showed me how they could tell he was male. I sat there fascinated! During this whole process the little bat bared his tiny teeth crossly at us, but tolerated the careful handling.
We came to the conclusion that this was a clearly a grand misadventure on his part, and thankfully he was just a little bit cold. I made up a hot water bottle and we sat for 30 minutes chatting about bats while warmed up. Bats can take a significant time to to wake up properly and he was not in a rush. At first he lay there not doing a lot but after a while he started to clamber around the hot water bottle. Eventually it was time to take him outside. She carefully cupped him in her hand and we stood at the front door staring into the dark.
Opening her hand and stretching out a finger, the lady waited. The bat looked about and sniffed the air. All of a sudden he climbed along to her outstretched finger, dangled upside down and with in a second had flitted off into the night. Wow!
I was so amazed at the whole process. I learnt more in that night about bats than I have in my whole life. It was a privilege to spend time in the company of one looking so closely at his finer details. The free support I had been given by the Bat Conservation Trust was truly admirable. These much needed volunteer organisations can spell the difference between life and death for our native wildlife.
The next morning I returned to their website and signed up as a member. It was the least I could do to support them after all the help I had been given the previous day. A couple of weeks later my ‘bat pack’ arrived and I am now looking forward to learning more about some of our most unique native animals. I love to watch them fly around our garden at dusk and will be asking for a bat detector for Christmas so I can listen to them too!
You can learn more about bats and the BCT’s amazing work here:
