Morning all,

A mate and I were down Gell's Adit on Friday afternoon (we took our own plank, as the one in there is horrible!). Somewhere between the first and fourth winzes, no more than 100m from the entrance, there were some bats hanging around on the wall in the tunnel, as I discovered when I put my hand on one! I'm no bat expert so can't tell you the species, but wingtip-to-wingtip the span was about 15cm, and it could certainly make a good noise to let us know we were not welcome! We saw at least two more hanging on the tunnel wall, but they had gone by the time we came back out.

If you are going in to Gell's anytime soon, please keep an eye out for bats and be wary of knocking these furry dudes with helmets etc.

Cheers,

DanHolme

Most of the VG adits get used as bat roosts, so it does pay to take care over hibernation season. Given the recent run of warm weather that's brought the insects out, they should at least have been able to feed now.

Oh dear.  Disturb a bat.  ?5K fine .... per bat 

Probably a Horseshoe bat.  So called after its horseshoe shaped nose.

Personally, I would have thought it was more likely to be a Whiskered/Brandt  :tease:

As AR has said, most of the VG mine adits are used by bats during the winter for hibernation and also to some lesser degree at other times of year. Several of the adits are surveyed annually by Derbyshire Bat Group - something I usedto do myself some years ago and some (eg Zomjon) will remember that myself and Jess Eades (TSG) used to use the adits to run our 'Bats for Cavers' educational surveys some years ago.  I also co-wrote the Bat Conservation section in the last Caves of the Peak District which gives advice on how best to avoid getting into bother with bat legislation and still carry on caving. Might be worth you having a read of that.

The bats you saw were most likely Whiskered or Brandt's (hard to differentiate without in the hand inspection by an experienced, and licenced, ecologist). We have also had Daubenton's, Natterer's  and Brown Long-eared bats in the adits. It is HIGHLY unlikely the ones you saw were Horseshoes Bats - they've not been recorded in the county for about 100 years, except for a single unsubstantiated sighting of a single lesser horseshoe about 15 years ago.