London Bat Group undertakes a wide range of projects and events to further its charitable aims, including bat surveys, habitat creation, education sessions through talks and stands at events, and more.
In the last year funds from membership fees and donations have enabled tree cavity habitat creation in Barnes Common, tracking of Nathusius’ pipistrelle bats wtih Motus tags, more bat boxes at sites in Addington and Nunhead Cemetery, as well as more equipment for LBG members to use on surveys such as acoustic recorders and caving equipment.
Clockwise from top-left: Wandsworth Eco-fair (photo credit E. Little), installing a data logger into a bat box (C. Montauban), tree cavity habitat creation (W. Dartnell), setting up a harp trap to catch Nathusius’ pipistrelles for tagging (E. Little), engaging school children with the delights of bats (F. Walker).
Details about some of these projects are below – please click on the title links for more information. If you have any ideas for new projects that the bat group could get involved in, and potentially help fund, please let us know or fill in a Project Proposal Form below.
Ongoing projects:
Data Loggers
London Bat Group funded the purchase of 18 data loggers in 2024 – small button sized recorders of temperature and humidity, to use in bat boxes. The data can help us understand the conditions preferred by bats.
Motus Tags
By attaching Motus tags to bats we can track their movements past radio tag receivers along their migratory routes for a few weeks, providing new details about their migratory behaviour. London Bat Group funded five tags over the last two years, with three successfully tracking Nathusius’ pipistrelles as they journeyed across the UK and to continental Europe.
Chainsaw Carved Habitat Creation for bats in Barnes Common
This project aims to create artificial features in living trees to add habitat for tree roosting bats, such as the Noctule. London Bat Group has funded the work and cameras to monitor their use.
Addington Hills Bat Box Scheme
London Bat Group has been monitoring bat boxes at the site since 2007, and with grants and membership fees it has continued to maintain and replace the boxes such that the project is still going strong.
Nunhead Cemetery Bat Box Scheme
A fledgling scheme that has been able to get off the ground thanks to funding from London Bat Group for bat boxes.
Education sessions
Seeing a bat in the hand at a bat box check, or hearing them through a bat detector on a bat walk or survey is unbeatable to winning the hearts of new bat lovers. The next best thing though, is hearing about bats and their incredible diversity from some of our passionate members.
London Bat Atlas
To make use of our database of records the Bat Group worked with GiGL to publish a London Bat Atlas. The atlas enables our records to be useful to those making decisions which affect bats in London.
Past projects:
National Nathusius’ Pipistrelle Survey
The London Bat Group started taking part in the National Nathusius’s Pipistrelle Survey in 2016.
Moon Phase Daubenton’s Survey
In 2010 London Bat Group took part in a Moon Phase survey. It involved two surveys of water bodies: once during a full moon and second during no moon. The project aimed to monitor the effect on Daubenton’s bat foraging over water bodies.
Site Transects
The establishment, and repeated surveying, of transects at several sites in London. The aim was to increase the network of regularly surveyed sites across London and monitoring more bat species than ever before.
Project Proposal Form
We are keen to support members taking ownership of their own projects. If you have a project idea and would like to run it as a London Bat Group project and/or request funding please fill in this form.
Please do forward your completed form to our enquiries email for consideration by the committee.
BCT bat surveys
There are already some long-running national surveys run as part of the National Bat Monitoring Programme, with several sites occurring within London. These are designed to be as simple as possible while still generating valuable data.
We would particularly recommend taking part in the Roost Counts Survey (if you know of bat roosts at which you can do counts) and the Waterway Survey (focusing on Daubenton’s bat) as both are relatively easy to carry out and will provide additional very useful data on bats in London. The Sunset-Sunrise Survey is also a great way to get involved with bat surveys, great for total beginners and experts alike!
For more information on these and other surveys visit the BCT website or get in touch to find out if you can accompany a bat group member on their survey.
London Bat Group 