We’re wild about bats!

We’ve been running some Bat Walks over the past few weeks and have loved telling people about these amazing creatures. Its been a great time of year to see them and Cumbernauld provides a fantastic habitat for them. Some of our walks have taken us down into Seafar Woods where the grassy clearings provide a supply of insects for these acrobatic mammals. We also watched them swooping and zooming past us down the open pathways between the trees, sometimes just missing our heads – though bats rarely actually get tangled in people’s hair!

Our bat detectors picked up noctules (the UK’s largest bat) and soprano pipistrelles (our smallest bats!) – the detectors let you hear the clicks and buzzes the bats make while they navigate their way around, which they make at a frequency that’s usually too high for us to hear. Our Project Officers shared some interesting facts – did you know that a single bat can eat up to 3000 midges per night? They can live up to 30 years, and they are more related to people than they are to mice!

On our walk we also spotted a roe deer, casually making his way through the woodland on a night time stroll. The Cumbernauld Living Landscape team also learned some local knowledge from one of the ladies on the walk – apparently one of the clearings in the woodlands would get called Wembley because kids used to play football on it years ago. These days the grass grows more wild in that area. It might not be so good for football anymore but it’s a great feeding spot for bats.

Where else have you spotted bats in Cumbernauld? We’d love to find out! You can click the links above to find out more about them.