Bats leave a roost during the 2022 heatwave - with young "on board"!
- Stephen Powles
- Aug 8, 2023
- 1 min read
Updated: Aug 9, 2023
A colony of bats (probably Pipistrelles) vacated a maternity roost in my house during the heatwave of July 2022. Within 72hrs, with exceptionally high temperatures, it appears that the roost under a slate roof became too hot for them. The CCTV camera captured a number of adult bats leaving, some with young "on board". The roost was active again this summer (2023).
If you are good at bat identification, please leave a comment as to what species you think it is.
The pipistrelle maternity roost in my S-E slate roof….no ceiling, so they are sandwiched between plasterboard and felted slates…..have gone in the past week or so, end of June, first week of July, with temperatures in Essex over 30c some days.
So it’d be much hotter in that cramped space.
I think usually they give birth in July, so I hope they’re ok. I imagine they’d bail out before they died of heat, but hope the birth of pups isn’t affected
It’s my bedroom ceiling, so I can usually hear them in daytime, and then see them fly out at dusk.
Hope they’re ok at such a sensitive time