Bats and Beer - Arran Wildlife Festival

Why not enjoy an evening meal and drink before this introduction to bats from SNH, and then search out the real thing using bat detectors.

Bats are highly specialised and remarkable animals with some amazing features. They are the only true flying mammals. Like us, they are warm-blooded, give birth and suckle their young. They are also long-lived, intelligent and have complex social lives. In Scotland we have nine, or maybe ten, of the 17 species of bat in Britain.

You can see bats in most parts of Scotland where there are broadleaved trees. Start watching from about 15 minutes after sunset

If you see small bats with a flittering, swooping and diving flight, around trees and high over water, these are most likely one of the two very similar pipistrelles. A slightly larger bat flying in longer lines low across and even touching the water will be the Daubenton's bat. If you catch this bat in torchlight you may spot its very white underside.

You may be lucky and spot a bat darting round the leaves of larger-leaved trees such as ash or oak, appearing occasionally to crash onto leaves. This will be the brown long-eared bat. As its name suggests, it has very long ears which it uses to listen for and pinpoint insects running across leaves or moths vibrating their wings before pouncing on them. In silhouette against a pale night sky you may even spot its ears.