Update: 03/11/11

Dear Claire, Lisa, Jill, Karen, Laurence, Peter, Stephen, Anne, Louise, Ms Movsovic and SH Gardiner

Thank you so much for supporting our National Bat Helpline which this year has taken over 12,800 calls. Nearly 6000 people called after finding a grounded or injured bat, 985 people called concerned about baby bats and on 26th June one volunteer took 49 emergency calls in just one shift! Here are just a few of the batty stories that you helped give a happy ending to:

GOLIATH

In July 2011 a couple in London found a tiny bat in their living room. Bea, the National Bat Care Coordinator, was on hand at the other end of the Bat Helpline to arrange for Charlotte, one of our volunteer bat carers, to pick up the tiny pup. Charlotte identified it as a Soprano Pipistrelle and whilst she ensured the newly named ‘Goliath’ had warm goats milk every hour, a search began to find its roost... Thanks to the bat monitoring team the roost was located and once an adult bat was spotted Goliath was encouraged to head towards them and before long they had both made a hasty retreat to the safety of the roost.

BROWN LONG-EARED BAT

In September 2011 a school in Harrogate called the Bat Helpline after having found a baby bat nestled between a pair of maracas and a tambourine in their music box. From the description it sounded more like a juvenile bat which, due to its inexperience and some windy weather, had probably been blown off course when heading out to hunt. Fortunately, the bat still seemed quite active so we advised that it be moved to a more suitable box and given a drink of water whilst waiting for one of our volunteer carers to pick it up. After an assessment the carer returned to the school to release the juvenile brown long-eared bat - an event that attracted a small crowd of spectators including staff, parents and pupils.

BOBBY

This summer on Jess Baker’s first weekend as a volunteer bat carer a call came in about a grounded bat in south east London. Jess packed her gloves, cloths and syringes (to offer water) and headed off to rescue the bat which turned out to be a Pipistrelle (our smallest UK bat). The family who’d found the bat had placed it in a ventilated shoe box with towel to hide in and named it ‘Bobby’. Jess took Bobby home and gave him water and some cat food gravy but after two nights he still had no interest in flying. Jess handed him over to a more experienced carer for intensive flying training and after the hibernation season we hope to release Bobby back into the wild.

A big thanks from Goliath, Bobby and all the bats that have been helped.
Heather McFarlane, Director of Marketing, Bat Conservation Trust