Yesterday in daylight I was observing a small bat flying over the water in a quarry. Suddenly it dropped into the water and immediately began to swim towards a wall at the side. The swimming appeared confident and I thought the fact it was in the water was not an error it had made. It crawled up the wall for about two feet, until it reach a grassy overhang but proceeded and meandered amongst the leaf litter, fallen branches and twigs. Here it stopped moving underneath a small diameter branch, which is where we left it. Perhaps it had run out of energy, but it had gone when we returned a few hours later. Do bats deliberately swim and is that a behaviour that could identify it? It was small, like a pipistrelle. We have some not very good pictures which I may be able to send as BOC pictures later. Thanks in advance.
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Swimming Bat in Belgian Ardennes (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter creedence
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Andy Adcock
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We noted similar behaviour in Venezuela with a bat that dropped in to a large puddle. We assumed it was sick and dying and I went to look closer, as I did so, it took flight and perched in a low bush and seemed ok. I wonder if it's some kind of bathing, cleansing?
It was the bat in this photo.
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