Bat roosts in trees
All Scottish bat species will use trees to roost. Identifying tree roosts can be challenging, especially in summer when leaves can make for tricky viewing. Fortunately, there are some features and signs we can use to identify roosts (and roost potential) when conducting tree surveys.
Why Are Hibernacula so important?
Over winter, many of our native mammals ‘power down’ and rest to conserve energy. For some, this is a reduction in activity and tendency towards staying in their shelters. For bats and hedgehogs (and dormice in the south of England) this is a huge physiological change, resulting in a dramatically reduced metabolism, with decreased body temperature, breathing and heart rates. This change is known as hibernation, and is a distinct adaptation to conserve energy.
How do bats choose roosts in urban areas?
Understanding how bats choose where to roost is where we start with your bat surveys. This blog is a basic overview, so if you think you might have bats roosting and they’ll be impacted by a renovation or development, get in touch with us today.
Getting Help with a Problem Bat Roost
If you are currently having problems with a bat roost, please get in touch with us on our website. If you have a bat in your home or have found a grounded bat, please reach out to the National Bat Helpline through the Bat Conservation Trust.
How do you get a licence for a bat roost?
You need a licence for your home renovation or development project. Here’s a quick look at the licensing process so you know what to expect.
Hair-Raising Bat Myths: What If It Gets in My Hair?!
Have you ever been worried about a bat getting in your hair? Well, we’re here to reassure you that is extremely unlikely to happen!
Preserving a bat hibernation site
Middleton Quarry was being infilled with over 600,000 tonnes of spoil from a railway project. To protect bats hibernating in the quarry we balanced engineering and ecology to create a bespoke solution.
Are Vampire bats real?
Another blog, another bat myth busted. This time, vampire bats - are they real? And if so are you likely to encounter one?
From Flappy Mouse to Bat: A Linguistic Journey
Why are bats called bats? Take a look at the etymology behind ‘bat’, and the entertaining names for bats in other languages.
What is a Bat Survey?
Bat surveys in Scotland happen in two stages. A Daytime Bat Walkover and a Presence/Absence survey.
Do Bats Stop Developments?
Bats are often seen as a potential roadblock for developments, demolitions, and renovations. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. With proper planning, and early consultations with a specialist ecologist, your project can proceed and stay compliant with UK law on bats.
How do bats choose their roosts?
Understanding how and where bats choose to roost is crucial for both development and renovation projects and for conservation efforts. The 10 bat species recorded in Scotland all have their own preferences for roosting sites, shaped by their ecological niche, physical adaptations and the balance of conditions needed for their survival and reproduction.
What is a conditioned bat survey?
In 2006, the Scottish Executive issued a directive to local planning authorities, outlining the illegality of granting planning consent at sites requiring bat surveys before those surveys were completed. This led to a widespread halt in issuing such consents.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift, with local authorities increasingly issuing planning consents conditioned on the completion of bat surveys.
Bats in Buildings
Scotland is home to ten species of bat, and many of these choose to roost in buildings at least part of the time. Each species has its own preferences, from the habitats they frequent to the insects they hunt and the types of buildings and structures they like to use for roosting.
Bat Survey FAQs - Part 2
Here’s the next instalment of our Bat Survey FAQs! If you’ve got a question we haven’t answered you can contact us anytime and we will be happy to help you out!
Bat Survey FAQs: Part 1
No matter what kind of property you are developing or renovating, there are several questions we get time and time again. To help your proposed works go smoothly, here’s the answer to five of our most asked questions…
What will your bat survey find?
To help you prepare for your survey findings we’ve looked at our previous surveys at 133 sites, split into rural and urban/suburban locations. Let’s start by looking at the surveys you might need…
10 Ways to avoid bat survey problems in your development
We are often asked to help people who have found themselves in difficulties with planning or licensing their development, but the best way we can support you is making sure you don’t have problems from the beginning!
Why can’t you just clear out the bats?
If you’ve searched “get rid of a bat roost” or a similar phrase, you may have come across resources from North America about the logistics of removing bats from your home - in the UK it’s a little bit different.