Birthday Bats

So this year to celebrate my birthday (well I should say to start my birthday celebrations as I still have Harry Potter studios and a maybe visit to Cirencester to come) we went on a bat watch organised by the earth trust.

 
The walk took place at local area of natural beauty wittenham clumps, where I had previously completed a whittling, which then lead to me being approached by some very dodgy types...

(Brian of wood school fame, who signed me up as I was whittling a spoon on that fateful day...).
Anyway the walk met at 8pm and we got he chance to have a look at some rescued bats and hear a little about the different species before heading out with our bat detectors to see what we could find

 This is the chap who was doing the talk (David Endacott) was from the Oxford Bat group, I believe he has a fairly big noctule bat in his hands...

close up!
He also had some very sweet little Pipistrelle's

Wing out! But sadly none of my faves the awesome long eared bat

(thanks to Marc the vet for that image)On our walk we found lots of Pips and Daubenton's which were feeding over a weir. What an awesome evening!