Country diary: Some bats need a little help to get through the night

Kate Blincoe

Iremove a crumpled leaf from the lawn, but it moves as I touch it, soft and solid, not dry and brittle. I yelp. It’s a bat. I grab a gardening glove and pick it up, noting the huge, gossamer-thin ears, each nearly as long as its body. A brown long-eared bat, mouth open, tiny little teeth showing. It makes a buzzing noise at me.

The bat needs safety, so I find a cardboard box and try to drip a little water into its mouth. I leave it for half an hour in the shade, and when I come back, there is no movement. I think it’s dead, but then the glazed open eye blinks – it’s hanging on to life.

Last summer, I erected a microphone on a two-metre pole attached to a device that records the frequencies emitted by bats. I share my garden with noctules, long-eared bats and pipistrelles in surprising numbers.

I phone the Bat Conservation Trust helpline to seek advice. They’re pleased that I wore gloves due to the risk of rabies. I’m given the number of some local volunteers, and soon Jane is on her way, returning from picking up a pipistrelle 40 miles away.

She arrives and also wonders if the bat is alive – but it is, and thirsty too, rousing to accept water from a pipette. Jane says it is a female and likely pregnant. She finds a wound on her body, probably from a cat, and a tiny hole in the wing, which shouldn’t be problematic for future flight.

Jane will give her oral antibiotics, food and hydration – a chance to recover. She explains that lots of bats have needed help this year, possibly because the extended dryness is forcing them to fly lower to the ground to find insects, making them more vulnerable to predators. I get deeply attached to creatures I rescue, so I’m thrilled when my pregnant bat makes it through the night.

A week later, Jane gets in touch to say that, sadly, the bat has died. In response, I decide to improve my garden for bats: simple measures like avoiding pesticides, making sure it is unlit, and growing night-flowering plants such as evening primrose and night-scented stock to bring nocturnal pollinators for bats to eat.

Courtesy: theguardian