2010 dates for your diary
Activities planned for 2010 include the following:
Wednesday 27th January - Chris Vine talking about some interesting bat work in Norfolk. The venue is Whitlingham Broad Visitor Centre and the doors will be open at 19.30 hours. Click here for directions
Wednesday 24th February - Ash Murray talking about the Norfolk Barbastelle Project & Seth Lambiase talking about bats in North America. The venue is Whitlingham Broad Visitor Centre and the doors will be open at 19.30 hours. Click here for directions
Saturday 3rd April - Bat call identifiction workshop for beginners, using bat sound analysis software, with Katherine Boughey and Catherine Greenhough.
Wednesday 28th April - First bat walk of the year with Sam Phillips
Bat walks continue every last Wednesday of the month until September.
Venues and times will be posted at a later date.
East of England Bat Conference
Bat Conservation Trust have organisised an East of England Bat Conference - further details can be found here
Bat recorders meeting
On 13th March 2010 there will be a bat recorder's meeting at the Nunnery in Thetford. If you are involved in bat recording in Norfolk or know of someone who is, please contact Dave Leech at the BTO for more information: dave.leech@bto.org.uk
Bats in churches
Christine Hipperson has been hard at work surveying churches in the Broads area for bats. She has surveyed approximately 35 churches and found evidence of bat use in all bar one. She has been collecting droppings in order to identify the bats, but would really appreciate it if anyone can send her a few droppings that have been taken from roosts where the species has been confirmed beyond doubt. If you have any droppings please could you contact Christine: christine.1988@live.co.uk
Bat box check at Riverside
The Norwich Bat Group carried out the first check on the bat boxes at Riverside during Autumn. Unfortunately, no evidence of bats was found, but it is still early days and hopefully next year we will have more luck!
Mousehold Heath Bat Walk
The August bat walk will take place on 26th August and will start from the Zaks Restaurant Car Park on Mousehold Heath at approximately 20.00 hours. We will be taking a walk onto the Heath, hopefully encountering several species. Click here for directions to the car park. If the car park is full there is another further up the road. See you there..........
2009 Annual General Meeting
The 2009 Annual General Meeting was held during May - thanks to everyone that came along. As a result of the AGM, one or two changes have been made.
Firstly, we would like to say a thank you for all of Sue Traer's hard work as Membership Secretary and Graham Hopkins' hard work as Co-chair and editor of the newsletter.
Sue has been a great asset to the Group, organising all of the new members, but has decided to stand down due to work commitments. Graham has decided to stand down as he has got his work cut out with a newly born baby boy! Congratulations Graham and Vicky!
In Sue's place we have Christine Hipperson. Christine will be dealing with all new membership enquiries from now on.
Other changes made during the AGM are as follows:
Nick Robinson will look after all the bat records.
Michelle Fielden, fomerly Co-chair with Graham, will be Group Secretary. Michelle has been instrumental in setting up the Group and will continue to help as much as she can, but will also have other commitments at University.
Catherine Greenhough will be responsible for producing the newsletter and helping to co-ordinate things.
Louise Oliver will continue as a committe member and providing the Group with support and advice.
Sam Phillips is now Chair of the Group and will hopefully be delegating all tasks to other people!
Bat Walks 2009
July's bat walk will will start adjacent to the River Yare, outside the King's Head, Bawburgh. The walk will start at approximately 21.00 hours on Wednesday 29th July, though people are welcome to arrive earlier and have a few drinks. Click here for directions.
Recent Events 2009
Chris Vine presented a fantastic talk titled "The Bats of Ickworth Park" during March. We had over thirty people turn up for this event and gained several new members. Thanks to everyone who came along and contributed to an extremely successful night. I think we would all agree that Chris' talk was very interesting.
Aims for 2009
We would like to continue the success of last year, with another varied and exciting programme this year.
If you would like to expand your knowledge of bats and learn more about their behaviour, consider joining one of our regular evening guided walks in and around Norwich.
Members can also develop their survey skills in the training sessions that we run for the National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP). The NBMP contributes to the conservation of bats by tracking changes in bat populations in the UK with the assistance of a volunteer network. The data collected by volunteer surveyors is used to indicate annual and long-term population changes in some species.
Enthusiastic members are always welcome to help on our stand raising awareness of bats to the public, at local wildlife events that we attend.
Latest News
Bat box checks at Sheringham Park
Recently, some members of the Norwich Bat Group helped out with the annual Sheringham Park bat box check. Over one hundred boxes were checked and a total of 65 bats were recorded. We were lucky enough to see soprano pipistrelles, Natterer's, brown long-eareds and a few noctules.
Thanks to Keith Zealand from the National Trust for giving us the opportunity to help out on this enjoyable and interesting day.
Last bat walk of the year
For the last bat walk of the year we started at Eaton and walked along the River Yare towards the UEA broad. The evening was cold and there were not many insects out; however, we did manage to listen to several common pipistrelles and a strange sounding Daubenton's over the broad. Fortunately, we had Richard Moores with us who could analyse the recordings at home and he confirmed it was a Daubenton's bat though he agreed it sounded a little peculiar in the field!
We look forward to seeing you all again next year and keep checking the webiste for our winter events.
New Bat Detectors
We would like to say a special THANK YOU to Ecology Consultancy Ltd. for buying two new bat detectors for the Group. The detectors were put into good use at our last meeting and are currently being used by two of our members who are trying to find a noctule roost in Lion's Wood.
Bat Courses in Wales
We would like to say a special THANK YOU to Nick Bonsall and Access Ecology Ltd. for inviting several members of the Norwich Bat Group to some weekend training courses in Wales.
Nick's courses were informative and enjoyable, we had the opportunity to listen to lesser horseshoe bats and locate several roosts, including this Daubenton's tree roost.
Thanks again Nick!