It’s about time we went a bit batty

Donal Hickey takes flight with Ireland’s bats.

BRAM STOKER, the Dublin-born writer, has a lot to answer for. It was he that gave bats a bad name, something that lingers on a century later.

Stoker had Count Dracula flying around London as a blood-sucking bat and, though pure fiction, people continue to associate bats with the sinister and macabre. True, bats are creatures of the night and are seen at their most active around dusk as they feed on air-borne insects, but bats are harmless to humans.

There are 1,000-plus bat species in the world, but just three species are vampire bats, and they are found in South America.

Ten bat species are found in Ireland and they tend to live very close to people, in houses, old buildings, churches and other structures. A house in the Lee Valley, Co Cork, is believed to host the biggest bat colony in the country, with an estimated population of 2,000. Bats are also found in urban areas and The Lough, in Cork city, for example, is believed to be home to five species.

There’s growing interest in bats, as is evidenced by much new research. Bats may live near us, but we don’t know much about them: there’s lots of research to be done into all aspects of bat life. Another myth is that bats are blind.

A new Centre for Irish Bat Research has been opened in University College Dublin, with funding from the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Over the next three years, this research unit will examine the ecology of three of our more elusive bat species. These bats — Brandt’s bat, Whiskered bat and Natterer’s bat — are woodland specialists, but are difficult to survey and tell apart. Consequently, we know little about their ecology, habits or population in this country.

Welcoming the research, Environment Minister John Gormley, said: “We have both national and international obligations to protect our bat species and before we can protect them effectively, we need to understand their ecology and their habits.”

The pipistrelle bat is the most common in Ireland. These creatures fly at about head height: you can feel them flying just over your hair as they move at great speed through the air just before sunset, scooping up midges and insects.

As someone that regularly walks a country boreen when these bats are flitting in fading light, I can confirm that they won’t crash into your face, or get stuck in your hair, but they come close enough.

Bats can send out loud calls as they fly and use the echo coming back to them to build up a picture of their surroundings.

The Bat Conservation Ireland (BCI) group has been carrying out surveys of up 16 roosts of brown, long-eared bats. Group members and volunteers look at castles, churches, cathedrals and old mansions. They also use advanced bat detectors attached to cars to record pipistrelle and Leisler’s bats. BCI now plans to survey and map the distribution of all Irish bats.

Dr Emma Teeling, the director of the new UCD centre, has brought together a strong team of co-researchers from UCD and Queens University Belfast to carry out the work. She says: “Our team represents a whole island approach and combines geneticists, conservation biologists, ecologists and bat field experts together.”

“Bats are highly sensitive to habitat and climate change and play a vital role in the functioning of Ireland’s ecosystems. They help maintain and regulate Ireland’s insect populations, which are in turn necessary for the pollination of plants and some crops.

“Irish bats are frontier species at the most north-westerly part of their geographic range. They may even be distinct species with unique genetic components and evolutionary histories,” she added.

Using new, forensic DNA methods, modern field techniques and sampling protocols, the team hopes to learn a great deal about bats during the research.

Bats in Ireland have some predators, including barn owls, peregrine falcons, kestrels and, occasionally, sparrow hawks. What may come as a surprise is that the domestic cat is their most lethal predator, according to the magazine, Science Spin, which reported: “Cats have high frequency hearing and can hear the bats at roost. They will catch them as they come out, though they won’t actually eat them. Many young bats fall prey to the domestic cat while learning to fly. Experts suspect the family cat has a massive effect on bat populations.”

Bat expert Conor Kelleher is quoted as follows: “If people know there is a bat roost nearby, or if the cat brings one home, we advise them to keep the cat inside at night time during the summer. Once a cat identifies a roost, it will see it as a bit of fun and go back night after night.”