Now I know many people don't like bats, but I hope these photos will show you how cute and harmless they can be. My house is proudly recognised as one of the largest man-made bat-boxes in the world, and we house one of the largest colonies of common and soprano pipistrelle bats in the North East of England.
I would like to point out that it is illegal for anyone other than a licensed bat handler to capture and handle bats except for in the case of rescue and relocation for a downed bat in trouble. It is also illegal to tamper with bat roosts. As I have a bat roost in my house I have had some training from the experts in bat handling so that when we occasionally do get downed bats I can check them for injury, offer food and water as required and either re-release the bat to the roost at dusk or dawn, or hand it over to a member of Durham Bat Group or a vet if it requires further care exceeding 24 hours.
All these photos were taken by myself (one handed in many cases!) of downed bats in my temporary care, all bats were inspected, photographed and released, none were caught for the reason of photographing them.
Above: my hand around a 45kHz pipistrelle, to show some idea of scale, this bat is fully grown!
below: the same bat again on my hand, one of my favourite photos, not many people get the opportunity to photograph bats like I do.
Above: a young female I named "Scoot", scooting all over my hand. Below: Scoot after release, as she was lively and not injured, after her check-over and photo shoot, I attempted a daylight release in her case and sure enough she scooted up the wall back into the roost. In the majority of cases in a daytime release a bat will just hang on the wall and not attempt to rejoin the roost - in those cases I wait till dawn or dusk when the others are flying and squeaking, which entices the bat to join them.
Above: "Sooty the terrible" - he fell down the chimney and had to be washed free of soot before release (shown here after his bath of damp cotton wool) next to a 20 pence piece for scale. Sooty had a bit of an attitude problem, or should that be "batt-itude"?
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