Building connections: our team's journey to Bath, Durham and Padova

In the surroundings of Bath

Because we endeavour to disturb lesser horseshoe bats at their maternity roosts as little as possible, we rarely get to see them up close. This is why Lucy and I (Camilla) jumped at the opportunity to handle and observe bats closely by joining a bat trapping trip that was organised and led by bat conservationist James Shipman.

On the track towards our trapping site, while carrying one of the poles needed for the mist net.

We arrived in the evening and parked on the side of a forested hill in the surroundings of Bath. Here we met our fellow bat enthusiasts, who were ready to brave the rain in the hope to see some bats! After parting ways with a group of ravers (who luckily were not heading to our same cave!!), we started hiking the steep hill, wading through the ferns.

Photo of the harp trap (in this photo we still had to attach the bag at the bottom)

Once at the cave, we waited for the rain to stop while a few members practiced setting up the mist net and the harp trap that we would be using during trapping. These tools are used to safely catch the bats while they are flying. The mist net traps bats in a fine mesh, while the harp trap guides them through rows of vertical strings so that as they hit the strings they drop into a soft collection bag below.

The sky cleared and it was finally time to start trapping. The mist net was set up, with two people always waiting next to it to ensure trapped bats were spotted and freed from the net as soon as possible.

How we saw each other during trapping

The rest of the team improvised a camp not too far from it and took turns to spend time close at the net. If the wait at the camp was ever getting boring, the short track to the net was sure to wake you up - it was the kind of rocky slope you would mostly imagine an ibex climbing, made it all the harder by the looming darkness.

While we waited at the camp, we got to know each other and discuss our respective work with bats (all made it more interesting by the fact that we could not actually see the faces of the people we were talking to!). At times, having the forest around us and seeing fragments of the starry sky, made even the silence welcome.

And the wait was worthwhile – to Lucy’s and my excitement, two greater horseshoe bats were trapped and we had a chance to handle one of them following James’ instructions.

Being able to see firsthand a species that has a similar morphology to a lesser horseshoe bat was great. From the articulated shape of the nose and the small beady eyes to the scanning movement of the ears and the way the wing membrane attaches to each limb.

We also saw a Daubenton’s bat, much smaller in size and very delicate to handle, which gave us a feeling for how diverse bat species can be.

Lucy handling a greater horseshoe bat, - the individual was identified thanks to a metal ring on the wing

Photo of a Daubenton's bat

Given that the conditions were not optimal for trapping, it was decided to wrap up the evening earliesh (it was 1 am!). It was an extremely enriching experience and a privilege to learn from people that are regularly involved in bat trapping. The trek back to the carpark had its own spookiness as Lucy and I realised it is not so easy to remember the way you came when the forest turns dark. We finally made it to the car, and left the cold and damp night for the warmth of our beds.

The National Bat Conference in Durham

The National Bat Conference took place in early September and it is for this special event that we set off for Durham as a team (from left to right in the photo: Camilla, Lucy, Chrissy and Tessa).

We settled in in our university accommodation and we were taken for a tour of Durham, from the green riverside in the evening light to the mesmerizing views of the lit-up cathedral, all accompanied by bat detectors to spot bats and even bat poetry readings by Dr. Briony Hellon-Hughes.

For the next two days, we had the pleasure of listening to talks that tackled bat-related issues and research updates from a variety of angles ranging from conservation, consultancy, monitoring, science communication and bat behaviour. In between talks we could wander among the stalls selling bat-themed crafts and natural history books.

We presented a poster on the behavioural responses of lesser horseshoe bats to noise immediately outside their maternity roost sites. Our preliminary results show that bats in roosts that are exposed to more variable noise are more often alert and rest less at a given time of day. This might suggest that it is hard for them to habituate to noise sources that are less predictable.

During the poster session and throughout the conference we had some great discussions about our work with members of the Bat Conservation Trust, collaborators from the Vincent Wildlife Trust and other fantastic researchers.

The workshops also gave us food for thought, from updates on lesser horseshoe bat conservation, to noise analysis and advanced sound analysis (thank you Daniel Hargreaves, Neil Middleton, Paola Reason and Philip Briggs for holding these workshops!!). These encounters allowed us to lay the grounds for future collaborations with the Bat Conservation Trust, ensuring that our research findings can have a real-world conservation impact.

The social dinner was an especially big event, with good food and full of entertainment. Despite receiving a meagre 2 from the surprised band that was asked to mark our bat-themed haiku during the quiz, we can say we had fun. We all took part enthusiastically to the ceilidh dance (even though doing that immediately after a 3-course dinner was a strong test for our stomachs!).

Finally, the highlight for us was definitely the talk given by PhD student Lucy Morison at the end of the conference. Lucy presented new results from her hormone analysis, confirming that the non-invasive method developed provides reliable measurements of cortisol, the primary stress hormone in bats. Importantly, cortisol levels detected in faecal samples show a clear peak during lactation, reflecting what we expect based on the species’ known physiological patterns.

Behavioural Ecology Meeting in Padova (Italy)

The last update is specifically from me (Camilla) as I left the rest of the team momentarily to head to the Behavioural Ecology Meeting at the University of Padova. This is the university where I completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s so the entire experience had a homecoming feeling.

Here I gave a talk about our project and specifically about how lesser horseshoe bats behave when roosting in a noisy world. Building on the findings from our poster at the National Bat Conference, I talked about how the time bats spend showing different behaviours (resting, grooming, moving, or staying alert) changes with the time of day and month, and the effects of noise on behaviour appear stronger when pups are present.

I then shared some of the main sources of loud noise at roost sites. While some sounds come from natural sources like rain, wind, and calling birds, most are caused by human activity: construction work, machinery, passing jets, cars and traffic, and, more rarely, music, people talking, or dogs barking.

This is only the beginning and a more in-depth analysis is needed to determine which types of noise and at which intensity thresholds cause disturbance to the bats, as well as and the consequences of this disturbance.

After an invigorating exchange of ideas and a bit of warmth from the Italian sun, I headed back to the UK, ready to wrap up our field season 2025 and delve into more data analysis. Stay tuned!