Bat found, did we do the right thing? (1 Viewer)

Hi Guys,

We came across a tiny bat (was about as long as my thumb) in a large cardboard box amongst some (of all things) soft toys in plastic wrapping. This was in our scout hut which is used twice a week and the box was left from the weekend, so would have been undisturbed for about 4-5 days max.

The box was in an upstairs room of our building, and although we couldn't see any obvious ways in there is always the possibility of small cracks etc or even a window might have been left open (although unlikely). A rustling noise as the box was being picked up and moved alerted us to its presence, at first we assumed a mouse and so the box was taken downstairs and carefully unpacked to reveal the bat. At this point we weren't too sure what to do, obviously we had to do something with it and putting the box back upstairs in the room didn't seem like a good idea! At this point we actually let the kids take a look at the bat briefly (most of them had never seen one before) and then put the box outside by the building for the rest of the evening. Checking the box afterwards and it was empty, so obviously the bat had flown off.

Just wondering if this was the best we could have done, and if we come across one again is there anything we should do differently?

Cheers,

Simon, sound like the right thing to do to me. Actually, showing it to kids that have never seen one is kind of neat too, as most people see them as 'vermin' until they actually see one up close and realize it's just trying to take 'care of business' like the rest of us. Now the kids have a physical (visual) connection to bats. :t:

I'm not knowledgeable enough about bats, but there's a helpline on the Bat Conservation Trust website, and there are also details of all local bat groups.
http://www.bats.org.uk/
http://www.bats.org.uk/publications_download.php/811/Bat_Groups.pdf
http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/help.html

You could contact your local group, and ask if they would like to either check out your hut for roosts- with a view to doing a bat count, or see if they would do a bat walk with detectors or the group.

Hope you didn't put the bat in an open box outside before dusk, otherwise the reason it disappeared might be that something came along and ate it! It may well have been a baby bat, which would probably have been unable to fly when you found it (I didn't see any flying before 6th July). It would also have been dehydrated. If found close to dusk, it is worth putting the box as high up as possible under the roost if you know where it is, about 15 minutes after sunset and seeing if it will fly. If it hasn't gone after 15 minutes, call your local bat group. If found earlier in the day, just call them anyway. There is a network of people who can care for bats and will come out and rescue them. If it doesn't need much attention, they will return it and release it within a few days. It would be worth the local bat group checking to see if you have a roost in the roof (sounds quite likely). I'm sure the kids would like to play with some bat detectors!

Thanks for all the info guys.