22:37, 8 AUG 2016
UPDATED 23:01, 8 AUG 2016
Bird Notes columnist Julian
Hughes of RSPB Conwy reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week and
where to go birding in the coming days
Despite their diminutive size,
some bat species are now known to travel immense distances
Attaching tiny, numbered
aluminium bands to their legs has taught us much about birds’ migration and
longevity over the last century.
In recent years, bat-workers have
copied the approach and over the weekend, a Nathusius’ Pipistrelle was found in
north Kent that had been ringed in Lithuania, 2,500km to the east.
When we recorded a Nathusius’
Pipistrelle at RSPB Conwy for
the first time last year, I have to confess I had to research the species.
When I was a kid, there was just
a single Pipistrelle Bat species in Britain, which a few years ago was “split”
into two species based on their ultrasonic calls; the higher-pitched one is
named the Soprano Pipistrelle.
Until the 1990s, the Nathusius
was considered a rare visitor to Britain, but more records in the last 20 years
was followed by proven breeding, and individuals have since made it to Ireland,
and back across the North Sea to the Netherlands.
This week’s record from eastern
Europe shows that bats, weighing as little as six grammes, can cross the Baltic
and North Seas, just as equally-tiny Goldcrests do each winter.
More studies will surely tell us
more about whether such bat journeys are regular, perhaps even predictable, as
bird migration has proved.
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