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Hello and welcome to Nature Fix with me Claire Hickenbotham.

Every month we take you with us as we meet the people who spend

their time outside and join them in a place that most inspires

them. The sun is setting and we're entering an unusual

wildlife haven, Arnis Vale Cemetery in the middle of the

urban hustle of Bristol.

Dr Parvati Venugopal is taking us on a mission to find one of

our most charismatic and misunderstood creatures of the

night, bats. So mind your step and look up as we enter the

twilight hour in search of our fluttering and slightly freaky

friends.

Wherever you may be, whether it 's the countryside or a city,

the chances are you're not far away from the wildlife that I'm

looking for tonight. I have come to Bristol and I'm walking down

a path with a lot of street art on it, which I think is really

synonymous with Bristol.

But I'm heading to a quite unusual city location to get a

glimpse of an enigmatic animal, bats. And to find them, I'm

going to be meeting an expert from the Bat Conservation Trust.

Hi!

Nice to meet you.

You too. I am from the Bat Conservation Trust. I Am

Parvati. I work in the National Bat Monitoring Programme.

Fantastic. So where are we going to tonight?

So I think my plan is just to take you to this very pretty

symmetry. I don't know whether the pretty and symmetry words go

together.

It's a very pretty cemetery, a big one in Bristol, Arnesvale.

But we are going to take a sort of urban set-up route. We walk

through the backside of the Sainsbury's and then finally get

into the cemetery and look for some bats, if we are lucky.

Fantastic. So you must lead the way. We've come from quite a

residential part of the city, haven't we? Yes. So lots of

Victorian terraced housing. So we're just skirting around the

supermarket car park.

Lovely birdsongs.

What can you hear? Are you good at recognising the birds?

I can see a blackbird on top of the tree.

So I don't. Oh, there he is.

We're just coming up to a busy road. So I have a confession to

make. I don't know a lot about bats, and I'm a little bit

scared of bats.

That's absolutely fine. You're not the only one, actually. Many

people are the same, like me personally. I was not scared of

bats when I was a child, but I didn't like them. The reason

behind that was, I'm from south of India, so I studied in a

village school.

Classroom roofs were like, you know, tiled ones, and we got

this little, tiny, teeny black creatures in them. They often

stained my white and blue uniform most of the days with

their urine or poo. So I didn't like them at all.

I think that's fair. So when did the love of nature start?

I think I got that from my parents because my mum, she

loves gardening. She still has a really good vegetable garden.

And my dad, he was an environmental activist. So he

used to take me with him when he goes to schools or places where

he gives talk.

So your dad? Kind of started that love.

Started that love in me. And also I come from a villagey

area, so my house was next to a paddy field. So we used to go

and play in the paddy field after the harvest. So it was,

you know, always out there, very accessible back in India. There

was two routes mostly during that time. Either you go medical

field or engineering. I didn't get a place in a government

college to study.

Medical degree. Then I was scrolling through the handbook

what other courses they offer and I landed on this course

called forestry. I thought oh wow I can go to forest. I told

my parents like okay I'm gonna go take that course. They were

not really happy because they didn't know where I'm going to

land.

But then they sort of trusted me and like whatever they wanted

was like just, you know, having a good education. During my

master's, by accident, I did a project on bats. And that's when

I first handled a bat. That's when I'm like, oh my God, these

are so cute. So if you handle them properly, they were like

really, you know, snuggly and snuffly.

Really fluffy and that's sort of realization like oh I like

working in this area I love studying about nature so I sort

of like I often say I took the wrong train but somehow I landed

the right destination that's a really nice saying I like that

well we're nearly at the cemetery now so you're taking me

to Arnus Vale Cemetery yes we're just going through the gates and

oh my words I I mean...

There are some very big structures in here. Tombs,

mausoleums.

Yeah, and I can see some tombs are taller than me.

It's absolutely fantastic. We've got this lovely patch of green

grass in front of us, which looks like there are more modern

graves here. But this is like a Victorian cemetery, isn't it?

Yes.

Because we think of bats and cemeteries as being quite a good

mix because of some of the myths, don't we? So are they

making a home in the cemetery because there are lots of places

where they can roost?

Yeah, exactly. So they can just They can find a home in old

mature trees or in buildings. We have seen quite a lot of old

Victorian-type buildings in the cemetery. So they can find a

home, plus they can just go out and get easy dinner. There are a

lot of insects over here. You don't need to commute that far

to get your dinner every night.

So this is a perfect location for bats. And bats are really

sort of cosmopolitan. They can habitat anywhere. Except

Antarctica, they are in all continents, and that makes them

the second largest mammalian order after rodents. So there

are so many cool, amazing facts about them.

Last winter, I went out in one of the caves in the Mendhip

Hills around Bristol doing a hibernation survey, and I

learned a new fact about bats there. So they can just hang

upside down just with one foot.

Sleeping completely without dropping off from the ceiling so

that they have a special kind of lock in their foot which keeps

them there. Even if they are dead, they can still hang sort

of upside down. Yeah, so it's like every time when I meet

another bat person who is interested in bats, I learn new

things.

Okay, so I'm just going to check the time because it's nine

o'clock in the evening now. This is going to be the perfect time.

Sunset time already?

It's about sunset, isn't it?

I'm hoping we might start seeing some pipistrelles because that's

one of the species that comes out early in the evening, just

before the sunset or soon after the sunset.

So how big are they?

So they are like the size of your thumb.

Oh, so really tiny.

Really tiny. So the smallest bat in the UK is the soprano

pipistrelle, which with the wing folder you can fit them into a

matchbox They're just like a two-pound coin weight. Bats use

a sort of special skill of theirs called echolocation. So

they emit sound waves and they listen for the echoes coming

back on any sort of objects.

The bat echolocation calls are ultrasound. That means our human

ears are not very able to listen to that frequency. We can only

hear up to 20 kilohertz. Most of the bats they call a bow 20

kilohertz so we need help of the special equipment called bat

detectors.

Got a little bit of kit here, a bat detector.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm going to describe it as like an old-fashioned mobile phone.

It's a bit brick-like but it's about the size of a mobile

phone, isn't it? So you can fit it in your pocket or your bag.

This is a very cheap one I'm using which is called

heterodyne.

You can get this just at... Detectors from starting from 60

pounds. What this does, it says I have a frequency dial here so

I can turn the frequency up and down and each bat species has

got specific peak frequencies like, you know, I have a unique

voice and you do and same as to bats.

I can't see anything flying up here but I'm just gonna turn

the...

Shall we carry on? Because I've got a funny feeling that we're

going to have a fantastic view when we've got to the top of

this hill.

Yeah.

And the light is very quickly going, isn't it? We'll keep our

eyes to the treetops, I guess.

Is the best place that we might see them.

So do you bring people on back walks?

When I go to London and take people out, we did one in

partnership with the Royal Parks last year.

What are people's reactions when they see them and they're a bit

more tuned in to what they're experiencing?

Yeah, that's what surprised me because most people attended

that event, they never knew there are bats in London. And

when they hear bats in a detector, they're like, oh wow,

that's so cool. And then they straight look up in the sky so

they can see them.

Because, you know, if you go on a walk in an evening like this,

you never... Look up that often, do you? So you can easily miss

out things flying past. But when they saw that, it's just like

they were all excited.

Do you think being in a city is a bit of a barrier to accessing

nature or is it just about knowing where to look for it?

That's a sort of common myth, isn't it? If you are in a city,

you don't get any wildlife, which is not true. You need to

go to a green space or sometimes they can come to your garden if

you... Look out after sunset, if you see these little things

flying around and around, that might be a bat.

So in the UK we've got 17 breeding species of bats. And in

London you could get, I think it 's 13 or 14, I might be wrong

but I need to check, but that many numbers, more than half of

the total bats in the UK you get in the middle of London.

And that's in London, we're in Bristol, so it's a really nice

way to access nature. On your doorstep in the city, isn't it?

Yes, yeah, yeah.

So what would you say to people to encourage them to come out at

this time of night and to do this sort of thing?

For me personally, going out in the park or, you know, just

being out in the nature calms me down after a long day of work.

It brings peace. It's very sort of, I don't know, serene.

So even the fresh air really calms me down and I get like my

brain suddenly feels like oh wow just woke up sort of feeling do

you feel like that's something that you need to actively have

in your life yes especially after coming here because I'm

far away from my family or close friends I do have really good

friends here but still you know going out for a walk Especially

doing bat walks like this often introduce me to people, sort of

like like-minded people.

So there's always a chance to meet a new person and make

friends. So we are walking through the park now, but we are

sort of heading to the open bit of the park. So hopefully we can

see more displays there.

As you're saying that, we're listening to a bird and I don't

know whether it's a crow, but I'm feeling like it's just

adding to that atmosphere of the sun is going down, we've got the

spooky birds in the background and we're talking about bats. So

why are so many of the things we associate with bats bad and dark

and spooky?

I think it's mainly to do with, you know, not knowing about them

because... They wake up at night by the time we go to bed. So you

never see them. People more talk about birds or big animals like

tigers, elephants, because you can see them. They're very

charismatic, but bats are mostly black in colour. At night, dark,

you don't see them. So it's quite easy to come up with all

these myths.

Just a sort of fear side, I guess. Another myth about bats

is that people think that they drink blood. But as I mentioned,

there are 1,400 more than that bats in the world and only three

of them drink cattle blood and they're all in South And Central

America. So you don't need to be afraid going out in this country

and looking for bats. Yeah.

Where should we go then next to have a look?

I think we should head down to there so you can come out of

this woody bit. Oh, I can see that bear. Just flew. I think it

's a pipistrelle. It was very small, flying very quick.

Oh, and now I've got something.

Yeah, can you hear that?

And I think I saw it just come right across in front of us.

Can you hear that?

Yeah, I can.

Oh yeah, can you see that? Yes.

That's incredible.

Yes, yes.

And he actually went quite close to us, didn't he?

Yes, yeah, yeah.

So that's the bit I'm scared of. This is going to sound

ridiculous, but I'm really scared of them getting tangled

in my hair.

You know what, I would say the second most popular myth about

bats, because most people think that they can get stuck in your

hair. If they can detect a teeny tiny mosquito in the dark, they

can definitely detect you on your head.

Oh yeah, another one. Oh my gosh.

So we've got two or three now, criss-crossing each other. They

look bigger than you described them. Yes, yes. Because of that

wingspan, I guess.

Yes.

And these are all the same sorts of bats we're hearing?

Yeah, I think they are soprano pipistrelle because we are

getting the loudest sound at 55 kilohertz. So if I go down to

45, yeah, I think we've got both species. Common pipistrelle and

soprano pipistrelle.

So the bats are eating insects?

Yes. All the UK bats feed on insects.

Do they eat anything else?

Yeah, some bats, they do eat spiders. There are species, they

eat fishes and big sort of beetles.

Who are the bats' predators?

You'll be surprised with my answer. So here in the UK, most

of the bat kills, of course, they face quite a lot of threats

like habitat fragmentation and destruction of old...

Mature trees or buildings but cats are another one yeah they

attack bats they catch them sometimes from the roost

especially so if you have a bat roost in your house the cats can

easily catch them sometimes in some tropics especially spiders

can also feed on bats if they get a sort of bat tangled in the

spider web.

And it depends on size. Yeah, exactly.

We're getting a constant stream now, aren't we?

Yeah.

I'm so glad I can see your excitement.

I am excited and I'm not scared I don't know if because they're

small enough.

Yes.

So you can hear them before you see them.

Yeah exactly. So you kind of know where to look. You can

prepare your mind.

So they'll start heading in now as the light goes even more

they'll go into the trees will they?

Yes yeah where they can find more insects into the woods.

I feel like we've been here at prime back dinner time.

Yes yeah dinner time yeah.

We've got them. Great flurry of them in the cemetery and you

know I reckon we've probably got 20 minutes of daylight left and

we want to be out of here. So should we turn our bat detector

off because we know what we're looking for now don't we? And

should we start heading back down?

Yeah back down.

Are you very pleased that we've seen them? I am actually, yeah

yeah.

How are you feeling now about them?

Well I feel genuinely like really excited.

Yeah.

The thing that we came to see, we've seen.

Yes. And like you said.

In so much of nature, sometimes that doesn't happen, does it?

But I feel more love for them than I did at the beginning of

the night, which I guess is your aim, isn't it?

Yes.

We've found the back gate, so this is the way out. Amazing

view of Bristol, actually.

With the twinkling lights as the city kind of wakes up for the

evening. We're emerging out of the park now, back onto the busy

city streets, to the petrol station and the pub. And it's

just another marker, really, of how close nature is to an urban

centre and how accessible it is, I guess.

Absolutely, yeah.

What would be your final thought for people to encourage them to

come out?

Sort of be open and just go and explore what's out there in your

local area. Because we don't have that many wildlife left in

this world, so you are very lucky to see them, observe them,

so don't miss the chance.

If you're planning on going bat spotting, they're busy settling

down for the winter right now, but April to October is a great

time to spot them. Please stay safe if you're exploring in the

dark. Take a Torch and a buddy with you. And make sure you

follow bat protection guidance.

Check out the Bat Conservation Trust website for everything you

ever need to know about bats. Thanks for listening to Nature

Fix. We'll be back next month with a new episode. And in the

meantime, why not have a listen to our other nature podcast,

Wild Tales. Bye for now.

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