As we turn the corner of winter, and the days get longer, our thoughts naturally turn to the coming season’s bat work.

In this newsletter we have:

• What do you want from your bat group in the coming year?
• Many of our members can renew their membership now
• Could you be a bat walk leader?
• Can you help with??? Requests to the bat group.
• Our next Bat Group events
• We are still looking for a new Secretary
• The latest BCT Bat Group Bulletin includes the 2025 Summary of EBLV Cases, which shows that Somerset was the county with most

---

What do you want from your bat group?

The bat group committee met recently to plan the forthcoming years events, and you will see the events program filling out over the coming weeks.

However, what would you like from your bat group? Would you like:

• More talks from bat experts, either in person, or online?
• More chances to talk to the public about bats?
• Opportunities to learn bat ID?
• Other training or workshops?
• Or something else entirely!

The committee would love to hear from you, hence please do email us to let us know what batty things you would like to do in 2026: somersetbatgroup@gmail.com

---

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL time

The majority of bat group members last paid their membership in the first part of 2025, hence it is now time for most to renew your membership. We will send an email to each member detailing your current membership status, 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 2027 AGM, on 17^th April 2027.

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. Then:

• If your details have changed, then 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.

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

---

Could you be a bat walk leader?

With some of our most experienced bat walk leaders, having moved away, stepped back, or are too busy to help as they once did, the Bat Group is currently very short of Bat Walk leaders.

Could you step in to hold the (head)torch in their place? If so, let us know!

The bat group can support new leaders with advice, equipment that leaders can borrow, as well as the boring things like generic risk assessments already covered.

If this sounds interesting, but you are worried what’s involved then the BCT run an excellent online training course “How to run a bat walk”, and have just opened up two sets of dates for booking:

• 2:30pm – 4:00pm on Thursday 19th and 26th February 2026 Book this course by clicking here
• 6:30pm – 8:00pm on Wednesday 4th and 11th March 2026 Book this course by clicking here

If neither of these dates work for you, you can register your interest in future dates here: Click here to register your interest in future dates for this course.

---

CAN YOU HELP WITH …?

The bat group receives far more requests for help than the committee can do. Hence please get in touch if you think you could help out with this recent requests:

• Somerton Gardeners Club are hosting Somerton’s first Nature, Environment & Energy day on Saturday 7th March 2026, and would welcome our involvement.
• Kingsbury Wildlife Group are involved with Somerset Day events at Burrow Hill Cider Farm, in Kingsbury Episcopi. The theme is predominantly Wildlife, and they have asked if we would like to run a stall on Saturday, May 9th.
• The Exmoor Society is running a Big Nature Day, on Sunday 31st May 2026, and they have asked if the bat group would like to have a stand.

---

The next Bat group Events

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

• 28Feb – Bat Detector Workshop, Chiselborough
• 28March – Bat Detector Building Workshops x2, Avalon Marshes
• 11April – Bat Detector Building Workshop, Taunton
• 11April – Ultrasound Recorder Building Workshop, Taunton
• 18April – Bat Group Annual meeting, Othery
• 25April – BCT SW Bat Conference – venue TBC
• 12May – Axevale Big Bat Count
• 16May – Shepton Beauchamp Big Bat Count

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

---

Bat Group Bulletin

The latest BCT Bat Group Bulletin includes the 2025 Summary of EBLV Cases, which shows that Somerset was the county with most (4 out of 13 total reported cases)

• 30^th January 2026 – #246

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

• This years Bat Group Bulletins

---