Beer and Bats Night

Next event: Friday 2nd July at 8pm

 

Have you ever wondered what comes out at Cody Dock at night?

After the sun sets and the humans have gone quiet, a small flying mammal comes out to play by the water.

Bats!

Bats are a regular visitor to Cody Dock, as seen by the people that live and work here, but before this year we had never been able to gather scientific data about which species live here, and how many there are.

In an effort to change this, a month ago we started our ‘Beer & Bats’ nights: a regular evening where volunteers can come to Cody Dock and use heterodyne bat detectors to locate and identify any bats which are zipping around – as well as have the chance to have a drink at our cosy pop-up bar!

Though the weather wasn’t ideal last time, we did find what was likely a common pipistrelle flying in figure-eights above the water in the dock to feed. We all stood and watched with fascination, and multiple simultaneously clicking bat detectors.

Our Beer & Bats evenings will be taking place roughly every month throughout the summer, where we will carry out Sunset Surveys. Other types of bat survey will follow, including the Waterway Survey (to specifically look for Daubenton’s bats) and Field Survey (which involves a transect walk). Find out more about the surveys and why we’re doing them on the National Bat Monitoring Programme page here.

Our next event is taking place on Friday 2nd July at 8pm. Use the form below to sign up or email or Gino for more information.

*Disclaimer: despite the very pun-ny title, bats have a diet of insects in the UK and are no threat to humans, or livestock, or bear any relation to vampires whatsoever.

Banner image credit: Stuart Anthony, Creative Commons Licence