Bat I.D. please (France) (1 Viewer)

Could this be a Serotine and pup? Roosting behind our shutters.

Wow - 140 views and no comments so far. Anyone care to venture an opinion? I can't take any more photos unfortunately as they've moved on. I would estimate that the size of the female was around 3" which seems about right. I found out today that Serotine are also called "silky bat" and certainly the pup (if that's what it was) looked remarkably so.

Torchepot said:

Wow - 140 views and no comments so far. Anyone care to venture an opinion?

Click to expand...

That's because bats are really difficult! Personally I couldn't say for sure, but while I guess Serotine is a possibility I would also consider Leisler's. I think the ears on your bat are on the short side for Serotine, but it would be easier to tell with photos from multiple angles which we lack. Also I once had Leisler's described to me by a bat worker as having a "dragged through a hedge backwards" look to their pelage which your guy seems to possess. There are one or two bat bods out there in birdforumland so hopefully one will come across it at some point and be more helpful than me. Good luck!

Thanks JWN
Leisler's wasn't even on my radar I agree the female? does look pretty scruffy. I'm tempted to invest in a detector or recording equipment as we have a lot of bats here - with at least two colonies in the roof and barn.

Its not any of the big bats it looks like one of the pipistrelles, possibly common due to the dark face and membranes but sadly not enough detail of the features to give a confirmed ID. The ears are not long enough for Serotine and not the right shape for the nyctalus spp. Fur on Serotines is long and often golden tipped on the adults, noctules and leislers have sleaker fur and what often looks like a mane around the head. The pup is probably around 2 weeks old in the photo and will now be flying.

The echometer touch 2 is a good detector that fits to your phone and allows you to record and see the sonograms etc. making ID easier.

Happy Batting,
Daniel

Thanks Daniel - for the heads up on the Echometer 2 and for confirming my suspicion that this was a mother and pup. I really should have taken more photos as I'm fairly certain it wasn't a Pipistrelle - in fact that's why I took the photo as we often get them behind that shutter and my wife always lets me know when the "big bat" joins them.

It's really hard to judge the size without something for scale but I was worried about disturbing them so just took a few quick shots (all from the same angle). I would estimate that it's at least twice the size of the Pipistrelles we see.
By chance I found a dead male Pipistrelle below the colony in the wall of our barn yesterday and it never fails to surprise me just how tiny they are. It was swarming with mites otherwise I would have taken a photo.