Bat walk in Burnham uncovers the real truth about one of Britain's best-loved mammals

Intrepid explorers got the chance to get up close with nature on Friday night with an exciting Bat Walk in the grounds of Burnham’s St Peter’s Church.

Organised by church administrator Pam Rogers, the first official bat walk was attended by 30 people and led by experts from BBOWT, the Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust.

Before the walk, a 30-minute talk on bats took place inside the church hall where BBOWT volunteer and bat expert Paul Adkins exploded some of the myths around one of Britain’s best loved nocturnal creatures.

“Bats are mammals – they give birth to young like humans do and typically they have one pup a year. The size of a baby bat is the size of a baked bean and they stay in their roost about six weeks then they start flying. Bats can live for up to 30 years,” he began.

“If you’re lucky and you’re outside in July or August you can see two bats following each other. That’s mummy bat teaching baby bat how to fly.”

Paul had been at a Bat Conservation Trust ‘Bats in Churches’ conference the day before and told the audience bats like old buildings ‘with lots of nooks and crannies’ in which they can hide.

Churches are hundreds of years older than modern day buildings and Burnham’s church is older still, having been built in the 12th Century, which might explain why bats have been spotted there so frequently and even in the bell tower, which is rather uncommon.

“ ‘Bats in the belfry’ is another common myth,” continued Paul, “As bats don’t like a lot of noise, so to hear they are in Burnham’s bell tower is quite surprising.

“Also people think bats are blind but they aren’t, they see remarkably well.

“British bats also eat insects so the vampire films about them eating people aren’t quite true.

“They typically eat 2-3,000 midgies and mosquitos an evening. If they didn’t eat them we’d be bitten an awful lot more. That’s one of the reasons why bats fly near people because at night the midgies may be coming after us. But bats don’t fly into people’s hair.”

After a few more myth-busting facts and a quick demonstration the group went into the dusk in search for some of Britain’s 18 species of bats.

Armed with ‘bat detectors’ the group listened out for signs bats were nesting near or flying overhead. The hand-held devices pick up sound by converting bats’ very high frequency screeches into something lower that humans can hear.

“Bats talk in different languages – and at different frequencies,” added Paul. “They also talk to each other a lot.”

During the hour walk around the north and south churchyard and pond, the group heard and saw dozens of bats which Paul confirmed were pipistrelles.

Periodically, the sonar detectors would pick up a rhythmic, ‘tick,tick,tick’ sound alerting the group to look up to see bats flying between trees or skirting across the pond’s surface.

“Tonight we came across soprano pipistrelles and the common pipistrelle,” Paul said. “One has a higher sound than the other but both are quite often seen together in churchyards.”

Pam said the evening was a real success and hopes to plan another.

“We’ve been working with BBOWT for some time now on a number of projects with the aim of turning St Peter’s into an ecological centre.

“We’re keen to show we are more than a place of worship but a place for all the community – all of creation. We have plans for other projects such as installing boxes for swifts.”

BBOWT is working with the Oxford Diocese to help churches look after their wildlife in its Wilder Churches initiative.