Whilst at CHECC a small party of us went to have a look around GB, twee little cave.  :

We found a bat tucked away in a narrow section of cave, not knowing the passage names I can't be too precise but as you're heading downhill, go right up past the bridge-like feature, then left uphill, ignoring the alleged round trip passage down to your left but continuing uphill still to the right as the passage narrows to some sections potentially awkward for awkward cavers, the passage ended and we came back.

We went to look for ULSA as we wanted tea (is it dinner down in Mendip?) and beer, having not found them we had a quick look up the muddy slope to the 'car' and back out.

:-\ After watching a guy perform a completely unnecessary and iffy ab down the freeclimable waterfall pitch down the bottom, I think that put our party off going further unfortunately, as it looked fun! (he was just going off one precarious block, ignoring a bomber thread and some better blocks, but anyway; to each their own).

Back to the main point - should that bat have been there? 
Will the poor little thing be okay? 
With a gated entrance, can it get in and out?

I didn't actually check for letterbox slots in the entrance.

Please note that any replies not containing at least two (appropriately used) smileys will be ignored. There's a reason they're dancing away above the message box.  :tease:

I was also down GB during CHECC and saw 6 bats not including yours (I think you are referring to the extensions of White Passage, where I didn't go this time round ) during the winter they go into a state of torpor or hibernate, and caves are a great place for them to do this. They are fine and definitely have space to get in and out despite the gated entrance (otherwise so many wouldn't be in there!) 

One thing to remember is that bats are very vulnerable to disturbance during the winter. If they are disturbed they'll wake up and this depletes the fat reserves they need to get through to spring. So if you see one please don't shine your light directly on it! If you have to point it out to others so they can avoid it, shine your light to the side of it. If the bat starts to rock back and forth that means it's starting to wake up so you should leave that bit of the cave as quickly and quietly as possible.

Is that enough appropriately used smileys?

Yes, GB regularly has bats in it particularly in the entrance passages. They can get through quite small spaces. Their numbers fluctuate throughout the winter depending on external weather conditions and they will wake up to feed. We have been observing and noting numbers in Reservoir Hole for a number of years and the numbers can fluctuate dramatically throughout the winter period. I have an idea that they tend to roost near passage junctions or in areas where there is some air movement and I suspect they may detect  sensitive changes which could indicate warmer spells outside. However I haven't so far found any reference to this theory on internet searches. Perhaps there are some bat experts out there who can enlighten me?

mrodoc said:

Yes, GB regularly has bats in it particularly in the entrance passages. They can get through quite small spaces. Their numbers fluctuate throughout the winter depending on external weather conditions and they will wake up to feed. We have been observing and noting numbers in Reservoir Hole for a number of years and the numbers can fluctuate dramatically throughout the winter period. I have an idea that they tend to roost near passage junctions or in areas where there is some air movement and I suspect they may detect  sensitive changes which could indicate warmer spells outside. However I haven't so far found any reference to this theory on internet searches. Perhaps there are some bat experts out there who can enlighten me?

Click to expand...

We (SC Avalon - Belgium) are working together with Plecotus (http://www.natagora.be/plecotus/index.php?id=plecotus) to do some bat countings in our gated caves in Belgium. We learned already a lot of them. One of the most striking things was that bats will hang everywhere in a cave during winter. Warm and cold spots, in draft,... Also they do wake up during winter and relocate. We also try to make our gates as bat friendly as possible since we work together with them.

Last winter we had a landslide above one of our entrances of Chantoir the Fagnoules. We suspected that the bats who were hiberating in the cave could have beeen locked in so together with plecotus we cleared the entrance during a 2 day joined effort.

http://scavalon.blogspot.be/2016/03/vleermuisredding-in-de-fagnoules.html
http://www.natagora.be/fileadmin/Plecotus/Echo/EDR91.pdf (page 8-9)

Working together with plecotus pays off for both sides.  Coming winter we are going on a couting trip with them in several new smaller discoveries of our club so that in the future plecotus will check these small caves too. And if the is a problem with the cave they will inform us; This means that we dont' have to check these caves every year.

An last but not least. In the beginning of November I did a trip in Gouffre de Captiot (France) and encounterd hundreds of bats.


A picture of a part of the colony :

I'm always surprised how deep into caves they make their way - Main cavern in aggi, antler passage in daren etc etc. And they can perch in the oddest of places, just off floor level on the side of boulders, in crevases or open space.

Speaking of bats I just remembered there is evidence of bats (droppings) and at an earlier date a bat in Craftmans pot in the Dales, however I note the entrance is lidded with no way for the bats to get in our out and the original ent has collapsed. I am not sure if those bats have died now being cut off but it may be worthwhile before lidding caves to make sure their is a slot to let the critters in and out. Perhaps if someone owns a handsaw (I don't) it might be a quick 20 min job to cut a slot into the wooden lid or excavate a small side hole?

(Not being Mendip, the cave is not locked its just lidded to protect the sheep).

caving_fox said:

I'm always surprised how deep into caves they make their way - Main cavern in aggi, antler passage in daren etc etc.

Click to expand...

Bear in mind that the bats don't necessarily go in and out via the entrances cavers use. There are more than likely a variety of other ways in that bats use, tiny rifts and crevices etc. The bats that can be found in the The Frozen Deep were already occupying that part of the cave before it was dug into, so it's reasonable to assume they have other ways in.

caving_fox said:

And they can perch in the oddest of places, just off floor level on the side of boulders, in crevases or open space.

Click to expand...

Indeed, I'm aware of other caves where they can be found low down on the walls or boulders, so please be aware that they don't only roost high up in the roof. Look out for our little furry friends.

Maj.

Maj said:

caving_fox said:

I'm always surprised how deep into caves they make their way - Main cavern in aggi, antler passage in daren etc etc.

Click to expand...

Bear in mind that the bats don't necessarily go in and out via the entrances cavers use. There are more than likely q

Click to expand...

Also bear in mind that not all bats needs to fly in into the cave. There are bats that are really crawlers

mrodoc said:

[snip]

I have an idea that they tend to roost near passage junctions or in areas where there is some air movement and I suspect they may detect  sensitive changes which could indicate warmer spells outside. However I haven't so far found any reference to this theory on internet searches. Perhaps there are some bat experts out there who can enlighten me?

Click to expand...

Yes, I can confirm this.

Der Fledermausf?nger

CavingPig said:

1. I was also down GB during CHECC and saw 6 bats not including yours (I think you are referring to the extensions of White Passage, where I didn't go this time round ) during the winter they go into a state of torpor or hibernate, and caves are a great place for them to do this. They are fine and definitely have space to get in and out despite the gated entrance (otherwise so many wouldn't be in there!) 

2. One thing to remember is that bats are very vulnerable to disturbance during the winter. If they are disturbed they'll wake up and this depletes the fat reserves they need to get through to spring. So if you see one please don't shine your light directly on it! If you have to point it out to others so they can avoid it, shine your light to the side of it. If the bat starts to rock back and forth that means it's starting to wake up so you should leave that bit of the cave as quickly and quietly as possible.

3. Is that enough appropriately used smileys?

Click to expand...

1. I know bats hang about in caves just hadn't seen one yet! I was more wondering about this particular gated cave, do the bats have to pay 3 quid too? I can imagine their purses would weigh them down.

2. As it was the first bat I've seen underground it took me a couple of seconds to realise what it was, but I looked away immediately and it didn't seem disturbed at all (unlike the ones that have seen the new SUSS calendar!).

3. Good job. :bow:

More on Reservoir Hole. Despite the fact that The Frozen Deep existed beyond completely choked areas in the cave bats have clearly used the chamber for a great many years before discovery. We have searched for points of ingress but not located any. Clearly it must be a very small hole maybe high up in Cheddar Gorge. We have found that hibernating bats have taken a liking to our farm electric tape used to mark path ways through the cave.

Saw at least half a dozen lesser horseshoes in GB yesterday and I wasn't even looking for them (because looking for them or counting them accurately would probably have been illegal ).  Most were in the entrance passage down to the chamber where you turn left into the short low crawl.

Surely counting them is not illegal its only photoing them because the flash can disturb them.

Long Drop said:

Saw at least half a dozen lesser horseshoes in GB yesterday and I wasn't even looking for them (because looking for them or counting them accurately would probably have been illegal ).  Most were in the entrance passage down to the chamber where you turn left into the short low crawl.

Click to expand...

if you not carefull  n/e will slap a gate on it  : :

Alex said:

Surely counting them is not illegal its only photoing them because the flash can disturb them.

Click to expand...

I can't remember all the details from doing bat surveys at Uni but from doing a little reading now it is an offence to deliberately disturb bats, especially "if the level of disturbance can be shown to impair their ability to survive, to breed or reproduce, to rear or mature their young, to hibenate or migrate or to affect significantly local distrobution or abundance" -Bat surveys for professional ecologists (3rd edition)

Natural England issue licences for bat survey a level 1 licence "allows you to disturb bats (but not hibernating bats) using torches."
Level 2-4 licences permit you to disturb, but not handle hibernating bats.

Alex said:

Surely counting them is not illegal its only photoing them because the flash can disturb them.

Click to expand...

Just shining a light on them can be sufficient to wake them from torpor during the winter (or so every bat conservation thing I have read has claimed). Any light at all could be potentially disturbing...

In climbing bird bans are total bans in the possible areas of disturbance (e.g. if there is a peregrine nesting on a crag, you DO NOT climb any route on that area of the crag or even just wander near it - some birds such as ravens are more tolerant and the restriction may only be a few routes wide). These bans are of course entirely voluntary but are widely respected by climbers. That said it may not be possible to violate the voluntary ban without violating the law about disturbing birds and a court would probably take a very dim view of your decision to violate it.

In comparison I am not a bat expert and I don't know how much work goes on behind the scenes to count and check on roosting and hibernating bats, but there seem to be far too few caves that are 'closed' (voluntarily or otherwise) over the winter given that I too regularly bump into rare bat species like Lesser Horseshoes in winter... I saw one in Eastwater yesterday at the bottom of the 35ft pitch and there were millions in Daren and Aggy a few weeks ago. I want to do the right thing, and I need information about where is and where is not OK to go in the winter. I don't care if others don't want to give this information out or rock the boat because they want to carry on doing what might be the wrong thing.

Hopefully I am paranoid, and there are teams of bat experts verifying that all our popular caves have no issues with disturbing bats... 

Bats

A lot of nonsense has been written about bats.  First there are the various Bat Licences.  I am not sure how many there are, thought up by the mandarins in Whitehall.  Briefly, if I barbecue a bat with one of Roy?s lamps, I am hardly likely to be prosecuted unless I am caught in flagrante  .

To change the subject.  How to disturb and kill a bat?  I do not know, but unwittingly I have tried.  In the middle of the last century and a half ago I was given the name Der Fledermausf?nger or The Bat Catcher.  I used to catch bats.  I would weigh them, but a ring on them, look for parasites and finally sex them.  OK there were only two sexes, no transgender bats, then.  Because the bats were easily disturbed, I made a wire cage, covered in hessian as a sort of keep box.  We would frequently find colonies of 100 or more bats and after a couple of hours the bats in cage would waken up and if not enclosed, would fly away.  I did not do this once, but six times a winter.  Sometimes they moved to an adjacent cave to avoid me, but I always got my bat!  This interesting thing is that I did not kill them but caught the same bats time and time again.

The moral to my story is: A barbecue might kill a bat, but frequently handing will not.

& bat numbers do seem to be increasing in a number of regularly used caves...

Mike