Two Pipistrelle Bats flying around the corner of a pasture field at the edge of Rampton Spinney at lunchtime today. Pipistrelle comes from the Latin word for bat, which is vespertilio, which literally means evening bird (as in “vespers”). We usually two to three Pipistrelles circulating in our back garden on balmy, calm summer evenings. Each bat can eat up to 3000 flying insects every night, including moths…
Not seen a bat flying in broad daylight, except in a church, when it was presumably disturbed from its roost on a day we climbed the bell tower (with permission).
I tried to get a decent photo, but they’re fast-moving creatures and this is the best I could do of either of the pair even when they were flying overhead:
Of course, it’s winter and these two really ought to be tucked up in crevices in old trees, hibernating through the cold period. But, it’s been relatively warm this winter with perhaps only one or two mornings with a frost. Inordinately, warm weather and something that disturbed them may have brought them out of their self-imposed torpor early.