Autumn Bat Box Checks – 3Oct25

Posted on by somersetbatgroup in Bat News, SBG Events, SBG News, SBG Newsletter

In this September 2025 Somerset bat group newsletter we have:

Autumn Bat Box Checks

Sat 13th Sept – Gt.Breach & Ham Wall

Josh was leading a group first around Great Breach woods south of Street. Most of the boxes were empty but two had small groups of Soprano Pipistrelles in them.

Then onto Ham Wall, where 16 out of the 30 boxes checked were inhabited. Over half of them! And all with Soprano Pipistrelles!

With so many bats slowing the group down it was nearly 5PM before finishing on Ham Wall, and hence Loxtons Plot will be left for a future visit.

Sat 27th Sept – Kings Castle Wood

Josh was leading a small team around the woods above Wells. Most of the boxes were empty, but one of the new Schwegler 1FD had 5 Soprano Pipistrelles in it.

Two new boxes donated by the Riley family were also installed on the ridge, and our thanks to them for the donation.

Thanks are also due to St. Cuthbert (Out) Parish Council, who have agreed to fund some more boxes for King Castle Woods, via their Green Village Grant scheme.

Sun 28th Sept – Edford Woods

Adel was leading the checks on a lovely sunny day in Edford Woods, north of Shepton Mallet. There were a lot of empty boxes, but the biggest surprise was in an old wooden box totally filled with 4 layers of paper thin wasps nests. Adel spotted a couple of droppings, and a tiny hole at the back of the wasps nests, and lo and behold, above the old wasp structures were 4 Soprano Pipistrelles.

The removal of unsafe Ash dieback trees from the rides has meant that bramble has flourished, and hence some of the boxes were a real fight to get to. So some moving of unused boxes may be required in the future.

Big Bat Count reports

Sat 23rd Aug – Blagdon Hill Big bat Count

On a clear still night, around 25 people from the Blagdon Hill ‘Greener and Wilder’ project, met in the garden of the Lamb and Flag Pub.

With 6 teams set off, and observed 66 bats across 11 different autoIDed species. Common Pipistrelle and Soprano Pipistrelle made up the majority. But there were also good numbers of Serotine and Noctule. The remaining small number of observations of different species will need more validation.

Sat 6th Sept – Stoke St Gregory Big Bat Count

Bryony from the Wildlife trust was running this count for Stoke St Gregory Environment Group. On “a really lovely evening weather wise” around 14 people set off to hunt bats, but due to issues with the new iNaturalist iPhone app there were fewer groups than hoped, so everyone could have an Android in their group.

The results from Stoke St. Gregory are in iNaturalist:

Sat 13th Sept – Longrun meadow Big Bat Count

Volunteers from Longrun in Taunton were helped by Patrick from the Wildlife Trust, to run a Big Bat Count in the meadows. A very iffy weather forecast meant it was a last minute call, but the groups still saw both Pips and Noctule.

The results from Longrun are in iNaturalist:

The Big Bat Count kit has just returned from being “on tour” in the community. Hence the recordings stored on the tablets from all the above counts will be analysed in the coming weeks, and more verifiable records uploaded to iNaturalist shortly

We are still looking for a new Secretary and Treasurer

There have been a couple of people asking about the roles of Secretary and Treasurer, but we don’t have any firm commitments yet. Hence the group really needs new folks to step forward to take on these key bat group roles. You can find out all about these important roles here. This is your chance to help your group.

As a bonus, anyone who holds one of the SBG officer posts for a year (or more) automatically becomes a honorary lifetime member of the Bat Group, for free.

If you think you could help, please do email us – somersetbatgroup@gmail.com

Bat Worker’s Forum 2025

The Bat Workers Forum (BWF) is an annual meeting held online open to anyone interested in bats, regardless of whether the interest is professional or voluntary and regardless of experience.

Next meeting will be held on 23 October 2025 from 7pm – 8:30pm. Registration is now open – click here to book

We will be continuing with the new format for the Bat Workers Forum with updates and supporting documentation gathered in advanced and circulated to attendees in advance as well as added to the website. The event will have shorter presentations and more time for discussion. This change aims to allow more views to be shared on topics covered in the updates and for any further items to be raised during the event. 

The aims of the forum are to:

  • facilitate communication and the sharing of experience between all bat workers and those interested in bats, regardless of knowledge or experience
  • enable the concerns, views and opinions of bat workers, bat groups and anyone interested in bats to be shared and discussed and, where relevant, communicated through to BCT and SNCOs
  • enable feedback, from the relevant parties (e.g. BCT or SNCOs) on issues previously raised
  • a roundup of major issues and/or highlights from attendees

Attendance

The meeting is chaired by a member of BCT’s Board of Trustees and several members of BCT staff (including representatives from the National Bat Helpline and BCT’s senior management team) attend. Representatives of the UK’s Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) are encouraged to participate, as are representatives from other organisations where appropriate.

The event is free to attend, with the option of adding a donation to support bat group work via the Partner Group Support Fund which provides grants to support bat group projects and bursaries for attendance at the National Bat Conference.

For further details and booking link, see: https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/conferences-symposia/bat-workers-forum

Update 10/10/25 – A supporting document is now available for viewing prior to the forum, which contains important updates from Statutory Nature Conservation Organisations and BCT. To view this document, please see here: https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/conferences-symposia/bat-workers-forum

The agenda is currently being finalised and should be available for circulation by the end of next week. If you have any items that you would like to put forward for the agenda, or any other questions, please email batgroups@bats.org.uk

Date for South West of England Bat Conference 2026

Dan Bryant, the new BCT Bat Groups Officer sent us the following

“I am writing to you to confirm the date for our next South West of England Regional Conference, which will be held on the 25th of April 2026. This one-day event is an opportunity for anyone interested in bats, from hobbyists and volunteers to professional bat workers, to spend time together updating their knowledge, sharing best practice, developing their skills and catching up on the latest ‘bat chat’. The day includes a mixture of short and long talks on projects and new knowledge, and a choice of practical workshops. There will also be time for catching up with batty friends or making some new batty acquaintances.

Preparation for the conference is underway, and we are currently looking for any suggestions for the following:

Venue – You know what we need! Plenty of space, good parking and transport links, good Wi-Fi, facilities, catering etc. If there is a venue in your area that you think would be a great place to spend the day, please let us know.

Speakers/Talks/Workshops for the programme – As a regional conference, this is a bat-group focussed event and a great chance to share with the rest of the region what your members have been up to. Have you been working on an exciting research project and would like to present the results? Would a member of your group like to talk about an aspect of bat conservation that they are passionate about? Or is there a particular skill that you’ve been developing in your group activities, that you’d like to run a workshop about?

All suggestions welcome and gratefully received.

Please send any suggestions that your group may have for making the next South West of England conference a success, and I hope to see you in April!”

BatSync Steering Group

A new project called BatSync is starting. This aims to significantly increase the amount of verifiable and accessible bat observations by making it easy to share ad-hoc bat recordings with established citizen science platforms.

Following on from our work with the Big Bat Counts the group has been invited by Dr Tom August from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology to be a part of the BatSync Steering Group.

The first meeting is in mid October, so if anyone has any input for the steering group, please email us and let us know:  somersetbatgroup@gmail.com

The next Bat group Events

Come along and get involved! The next events coming up are:

  • 15Nov – Bat Detector building Workshop – Stoke St. Michael (one place left)
  • 15Nov – Ultrasound recorder building Workshop – Stoke St. Michael (full)
  • Jan’26 – National Bat Monitoring Hibernation counts.

Details of how to get involved for all events are on the website: https://somersetbat.group/events/

Bat Group Bulletin

This month’s BCT Bat Group Bulletin includes the news of a new chair of BCT, Steve Roe. Congratulations Steve, well deserved!

Back copies of all past Bat Group Bulletins are on the link below:

Final reminder of MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

For those people who last paid subs in the first part of 2024 this will be their final reminder to renew. We will let you know if you are one of the 42 people due to renew, via your bat group newsletter, so please check your inbox (and spam).

It costs just £5 per household to re-join the bat group (free for students/unwaged), and your renewed membership would then run until our 2026 AGM, on 18th April 2026.

For regular members, you might like to consider taking out lifetime membership, which is just £50 per household.

Please pay your membership subs by BaCs or Paypal (if applicable). Then:

  • If your details have changed, please complete our online membership form to update your information. 
  • OR, if nothings changed, simply just drop us an email to let us know you have paid, or that you are still eligible for free membership.

Full details on our website: https://somersetbat.group/join/