BatChat

S4E40 In this interview recorded right at the end of August 2022, Steve is sat in a Norfolk woodland with Dr Charlotte Packman. We learn what potential impacts a new road in the area might have on the local bat populations and as Lotty explains it could have a significant impact on a nationally significant barbastelle bat population. Lotty works for the Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) as their Conservation Scientist and the research discussed in this episode has been a collaboration between NWT, Wild Wings Ecology and the University of East Anglia. Lotty starts us off by introducing herself and describing where we are.

Read the latest on the NDR from the Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
Our own position statement on the NDR is here.
The Change.org petition can be found here.
Listen to that other episode mentioned with Jane Harris at the incredible Paston Great Barn site.
Since recording this episode the Norfolk Wildlife Trust have submitted a proposal to Natural England to consider the Wensum Woodlands for SSSI status. You can find that application listed here.

Send a voice message to BatChat! We want you to get in touch with your favourite bat experience. It doesn’t matter whether it was the first time you’ve ever seen a bat, you might have seen a brief shadow flying past as you were leaving your house, perhaps you’ve been checking bat boxes with your local bat group and saw bats up close for the first time or saw a bat species you've never seen before. Whether you’re new to bats or a seasoned bat lover, we want to hear all about your favourite bat experience from this year. Record your voice message here. Don't worry, you can hear it back and re-record it if you don't like it.

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S4E39 Rodrigo Medellín is Mexico's very own 'Bat Man'. Since he first kept vampire bats in his bathroom as a child, Rodrigo has dedicated his life to saving them. On the evening of the 2022 UK National Bat Conference, Steve sits down with Rodrigo and asks him what it felt like to succeed in taking the lesser long nosed bat off the endangered species list and what it felt like to watch the bat volcano of Calakmul for the first time.

National Geographic Explorer at Large Rodrigo Medellín
Rodrigo's twitter and Instagram
Bat friendly tequila brands 

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S4E38 We return to London's Natural History Museum. This time however, we're in the bowels of the Diptera collection with flygirl herself, Dr Erica McAlister. If you think you recognise that name it's because Erica has graced the airwaves several times before including BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage and The Life Scientific. As you'll hear in this episode, Erica needs help from those of us who regularly handle bats. If you're a bat carer or a bat worker who undertakes bat box checks or trapping surveys, please start collecting all bat ectoparasites from bats and place them into vials of 100% ethanol. Make detailed notes about the species of bat they came from, the sex of the bat, located of ectoparasite & what the bat was doing at the time. A location & the habitat is also a must. As much info as possible! You can then post your specimens to:
Dr Erica McAlister,
Senior Curator; Diptera,
Life Sciences (Insects Division),
The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road,
London SW7 5BD.

Your specimens will be added to the collection and your name will eventually appear in the digital collections.

Bat and bird fly recording scheme website
See Piotr Naskrecki's bat fly image here
A short video of Erica talking about bat flies along with more photos here
Ethanol can be purchased here
Sample tubes can be purchased here

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S4E37 Haddon Hall, the private residence of Lord and Lady Edward Manners,  is set in the Peak District in the valley of the River Wye. With nine hundred years of history, it is one of the oldest houses in the country and moreover one of the only houses in England to have remained in one family’s ownership for its entire existence. In the corner of the Hall, a large soprano pipistrelle bat roost resides within the roof of the Chapel. Steve chats with Lord Edward about rewilding of the estate, his conservation work in Africa and the fact that he has to clear bat droppings from his desk each morning! 

Find out more about wilding of the Medieval Parkland as well as it's ecology
Watch a video of the roost on the Derbyshire Bat Group YouTube page
Advice about bats in historic buildings from Historic England, the bats in churches project and from this collaborative guide.

Send a voice message to BatChat! We want you to get in touch with your favourite bat experience. It doesn’t matter whether it was the first time you’ve ever seen a bat, you might have seen a brief shadow flying past as you were leaving your house, perhaps you’ve been checking bat boxes with your local bat group and saw bats up close for the first time or saw a bat species you've never seen before, perhaps you’ve counted a bat roost this summer and something unusual happened, maybe you heard what bats sound like on a detector and thought it was the coolest thing ever! Whether you’re new to bats or a seasoned bat lover, we want to hear all about your favourite bat experience from this year. Record your voice message here. Don't worry, you can hear it back and re-record it if you don't like it.

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S4E36 You join us in a secret location this week. Back in 2019, Scotty Dodd from the Sussex Bat Group made the most significant discovery in the history of the bat group...the first maternity roost of greater horseshoe bats in Sussex for one hundred years. Truly the find of the century! In a small dry valley surrounded by beech trees, Scotty & Steve are sat in front of the run-down stable block as Scotty describes to Steve how he came across the roost and got the verification he was looking for.

As you'll hear in this episode, the team need a lot of money to save this roost and improve it so that the colony has every chance of survival. So if you can,
donate to the JustGiving appeal here
See the roost on the VWT website
See what else the Sussex Bat Group get up to and follow them on twitter

Send a voice message to BatChat! We want you to get in touch with your favourite bat experience. It doesn’t matter whether it was the first time you’ve ever seen a bat, you might have seen a brief shadow flying past as you were leaving your house, perhaps you’ve been checking bat boxes with your local bat group and saw bats up close for the first time or saw a bat species you've never seen before, perhaps you’ve counted a bat roost this summer and something unusual happened, maybe you heard what bats sound like on a detector and thought it was the coolest thing ever! Whether you’re new to bats or a seasoned bat lover, we want to hear all about your favourite bat experience from this year. Record your voice message here. Don't worry, you can hear it back and re-record it if you don't like it.

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S4E35 We're back with a brand new series! This week Steve joins a volunteer roost visitor, Chris Smith from Staffordshire Bat Group, on a roost visit requested by the Bat Conservation Trust. Chris discusses the value of the free service, how he got into volunteering for the visits and why he thinks it provides such a great positive outcome for bats (most of the time!). Hear how Chris undertakes the survey and provides advice to the roost owners afterwards.

Want to know more about bats living in your house or how to tell if you have a bat roost? BCT have lots of info here.
Interested in becoming a Volunteer Roost Visitor?

Send a voice message to BatChat! We want you to get in touch with your favourite bat experience. It doesn’t matter whether it was the first time you’ve ever seen a bat, you might have seen a brief shadow flying past as you were leaving your house, perhaps you’ve been checking bat boxes with your local bat group and saw bats up close for the first time or saw a bat species you've never seen before, perhaps you’ve counted a bat roost this summer and something unusual happened, maybe you heard what bats sound like on a detector and thought it was the coolest thing ever! Whether you’re new to bats or a seasoned bat lover, we want to hear all about your favourite bat experience from this year. Record your voice message here. Don't worry, you can hear it back and re-record it if you don't like it.

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

BatChat is returning on 9th November 2022 with series 4 and we want to hear from you!

Yes that's right; you guys, your voices, on this show. We want you to get in touch with your favourite bat experience. Maybe you discovered bats living in your house, you went on a bat walk for the first time or you saw bats somewhere you weren't expecting. Whether you’re new to bats or a seasoned bat lover, we want to hear all about your favourite bat experience.

So how do you leave this message? Well you can leave us a voicemail and we’ll play your recording here on BatChat!

https://www.speakpipe.com/batchat

Don’t worry; you can listen to your message before sending it to us and re-record it if you don’t like it! Remember to say your name if you'd like to be credited.

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S3E34 Hidden amongst the boughs of an Oak tree, Steve & his guests look down over the Knepp Castle Rewilding Estate; former farmland which has been allowed to return to nature by the owners Isabella Tree & Charlie Burrell. In this episode, as the sun sets the light turns golden. Below us red deer begin to bellow at the start of the rutting season, a green woodpecker calls out from amongst the tussocky grassland and bats begin to flit about the Oak canopy they're stood in. Our guests in this final episode of season 3 are Ryan Greaves and Stephanie Murphy. Ryan tells us more about the Estate and Steph explains how bat surveys have evolved over the years.

• Follow Ryan and Steph on Instagram
• Follow Knepp on twitter and Instagram
• Find out more about the greater horseshoes in Sussex
• Get more audio from Knepp by having a listen to their podcast
• Get the history of the Knepp Rewilding project here
• The bestselling book Wilding by Isabella Tree can be bought here

Season 4

Recording for series 4 is already underway and will be coming later in the year. We're looking for participants to share bat stores from across the UK with the podcast so if you're working on a great bat project or have a story about the bats in your area to share please drop us an email to [email protected]

Our Social Media

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BatConservationTrust
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_BCT_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/batconservationtrust

For more bat news, head to our website https://www.bats.org.uk/

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan
Cover Art: Rachel Hudson http://rachelhudsonillustration.com/

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S3E33 Discover the amazing work taking place in the dead of night each year by hoards of volunteers. This episode starts with Steve joining a team of these volunteers who are counting out a brown long-eared bat roost in the Derbyshire Dales at dusk as a nearby rookery gathers. We then sit down in Battersea Park, London with Philip Briggs, monitoring manager for the Bat Conservation Trust who collates all of this data sent in by volunteers and turns it into invaluable trends to establish how our bats are faring year on year in the UK.  The National Bat Monitoring Programme is one of the longest running citizen science projects in the world and YOU, yes YOU can take part! There are surveys which need no prior experience.

• Get involved with the NBMP yourself here
• Take a look at the summary maps for each survey type
• Watch footage of the brown long-eared roost being counted out by Jill in this episode here as the bats return at dawn
• Read the latest NBMP report to see how our bats are faring
• Please leave us a review of the show as it helps us get BatChat discovered by other listeners. Instructions of how to leave your review in each of these places can be found here.

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BatConservationTrust
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_BCT_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/batconservationtrust

For more bat news, head to our website https://www.bats.org.uk/

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan
Cover Art: Rachel Hudson http://rachelhudsonillustration.com/

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!

S3E32 Join Steve on the Welcombe Hills overlooking Stratford-upon-Avon as he sits down with the author of Bobby the brown long-eared bat, a children's book which follows the adventure of a baby brown long-eared bat who lives in the attic of a farmyard. Sitting in the autumn sunshine on a wooden bench watching the world go by, Angela reveals to Steve where the inspiration for Bobby came from, how she got into the world of bats, the challenges of publishing as well as revealing what's next in store for Bobby!  

• Angela is on twitter and Instagram
• Find out more about Bobby the brown long-eared bat on his own website!
• Get your own signed copy direct from Angela from her online shop
• or order from here and 10% of the proceeds will be donated to the Bat Conservation Trust
• Support your local bookstore by shopping on uk.bookshop.org where you can name your local bookstore to support them whilst you shop.

Join the conversation on social media using #BatChat:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BatConservationTrust
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_BCT_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/batconservationtrust

For more bat news, head to our website https://www.bats.org.uk/

Producer: Steve Roe @SteveRoeBatMan
Cover Art: Rachel Hudson http://rachelhudsonillustration.com/

Support the show

Please leave us a review or star rating if your podcast app allows it because it helps us to reach a wider audience so that we can spread the word about how great bats are. How to write a podcast review (and why you should).

Got a story to share with us? Please get in touch via [email protected]

Bats are magical but misunderstood. At BCT our vision is a world rich in wildlife where bats and people thrive together. Action to protect & conserve bats is having a positive impact on bat populations in the UK. We would not be able to continue our work to protect bats & their habitats without your contribution so if you can please donate. We need your support now more than ever: www.bats.org.uk/donate  Thank you!