Bat Photography

frank

frank

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Had a phone call tonight from a friend asking if it was possible for me to take photos of bats flying around near his house in the countryside. I told him I probably had more chance of winning the lottery than catching a bat in flight in the evening.
He needs evidence of bats in the area as a group of residents are objecting to council planning permission for building works. These clever people at the council came out at 1pm in the afternoon looking for bats and decided there are none, it seems no-one told them they are nocturnal creatures:wacky:

Unfortunately the bat roost has not been located yet which would help. Anyone here on TP taken pics of bat's in flight, what are my chances of getting a bat in flight with a panasonic GF1 and 1.7 20.lens, is it worth the effort to try?
 
What exactly is the building work? New build renovation to an old property? contact your local wildlife group if there is one and explain the situation.
 
New builds which will be only a few mtr's from his back garden which is a hill leading up to a large area of woodland. Looks like they want to cover the whole area in new housing
 
Not sure if the BCT charge a fee for doing a survey on bats and where they are roosting, if so then I think my friend will need to get the rest of the objectors to contribute,
Got a loan of a video camera which I'm told is quite good in low light, will see what happens tomorrow night weather permitting ...and no I'm not putting the batman suit on :)
 
When I put in for planning permission for my barn I had to have a bat survey done
I would assume the council would have to do the same
It has to be carried out at a certain time of year and was done in the evening
The outcome of all this wasted time and money was there is no evidence of bats roosting in the barn however they did spot a couple of bats
all we had to do was fit a bat box 20 quid
I could have done that at the start and saved waiting 9 months and spending £900 on a report
The planning office still refused planning permission
I sold the place in the end as it was I had spent 4 years of my life and 18k on trying to get a simple planning application passed
 
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Rebel t3i said:
When I put in for planning permission for my barn I had to have a bat survey done
I would assume the council would have to do the same
It has to be carried out at a certain time of year and was done in the evening
The outcome of all this wasted time and money was there is no evidence of bats roosting in the barn however they did spot a couple of bats
all we had to do was fit a bat box 20 quid
I could have done that at the start and saved waiting 9 months and spending £900 on a report
The planning office still refused planning permission
I sold the place in the end as it was I had spent 4 years of my life and 18k on trying to get a simple planning application passed
Click to expand...

and had you started your building work and then found and destroyed a roost would you have the same attitude to having to pay a fine of upto £5k PER ANIMAL? (some roosts hold in excess of 100 bats.....do the maths),£900 well spent if you ask me(y).
 
mex said:
and had you started your building work and then found and destroyed a roost would you have the same attitude to having to pay a fine of upto £5k PER ANIMAL? (some roosts hold in excess of 100 bats.....do the maths),£900 well spent if you ask me(y).
Click to expand...
no need to have a go at me you are not aware of the type of building, it's layout, history or structural integrity
the layout out of the barn and the fact the roof was replaced completely with an asbestos one 40 years ago due to a fire, made it very simple to see there were no bats or even swallows or house martins in there, first thing the experts commented on, the farm house however was a totally different issue but they weren't interested in that which I found surprising

I was merely trying to make a simple point and pass on my first hand experience
The council should abide by the same rules I had to
if bats are found all that is required is a bat box or 2
also planning is a farce I was granted permission to convert it into holiday lets but not a dwelling with a partial commercial use
what's the actual difference nothing but the potential value and I wasn't prepared to borrow the 300k needed to do this
 
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The residents could try contacting Scottish Natural Heritage(I'm assuming your friend lives in Scotland) - lots on their site about bats, eg

http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-sc...icensing/mammal-licensing/bats-and-licensing/

Or contact the wildlife officer at the council concerned to ask for advice about work due to carried out on an area that has a bat roost. It is not unknown for one part of a council to be unaware of what another part is doing.

A local wildlife group may have someone with a bat detector who may be able to help establish the existence of the bats.

Dave
 
I took a couple earlier this year


Common Pipistrelle by flikrnik, on Flickr


Common pipistrelle by flikrnik, on Flickr

I found it was best to study the bats for a few nights to work out their normal flight pattern. These were taken between an oak tree and the end of my house. Using manual flash (1/8 or 1/16 power) and manual focus, I focussed on a peg on a washing line at the same distance to where I expected the bat to fly. I also practised taking photos without looking through the viewfinder but sighting over the top plate to the left of the prism.

The lens focal length used was a balance between getting the bat in frame and getting it big enough not to require to much cropping. I found with a full frame somewhere between 70mm and 135mm focal length was best.

I stopped taking pictures of the bats at home as I was advised that flash photography could be disturbing to them.
 
I went out on a guided walk around Arundel WWT on Friday night, looking for bats. The expert had an extremely bright torch that he used to highlight the bats as they flew about over the pond. The Daubenton's Bats didn't seem too keen on it and would fly to the other side of the lake when illuminated (returning within a minute or two according to my bat detector). The Pipistrelles, however, didn't seem to mind at all. Indeed, when a moth was trapped in the beam one of them used that as an opportunity to attack it! Obvioulsy they're not that blind.

The batbox in our garden is inhabited, so we have a few pipistrelles that fly around at night. The next time we have a relatively warm, still evening I may try getting one by random shooting in the dark with a flash.

I did spot one a couple of years ago, out when it was still fairly light. I only had a little time, so no flash, but I did grab this...

bat.jpg
 
Surely it would be easier to get a local bad group in with a detector?

Photos of bats are cool, but unless done really well it would be very difficult to prove where they were taken.
 
you don't need photos...............bats leave bat chit
 
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