This week’s article is brought to you by the Manx Bat Group as this is one of the best times of the year to go bat watching.

Many people are surprised to learn that there are bats living in the Isle of Man but they are more common than you might think.

They can be difficult to spot at night as they are all very small and fly quickly. The common pipistrelle weighs about four grams and has a wingspan of around 20cm.

However a little patience is rewarded as on mild summer nights their characteristic agile, darting flight can be seen in towns, glens, woodland, over beaches, farmyards and gardens or over water throughout the island.

They are easiest to see about an hour after sunset as this is their peak time for feeding.

All seven Manx species eat insects which they hunt at night.

Each species has its own favourite types of prey, which it hunts in its own special way.

Most are caught in the air but the brown long-eared bat likes to use its enormous ears to listen out for the tiny sounds that insects make.

It then hovers near to the tree and is able to pick moths and other insects or spiders off the leaves. Contrary to popular belief, bats are not blind but at night their ears are more important than their eyes.

As they fly they make shouting sounds at ultra-high frequencies that people cannot hear.

The returning echoes give the bats information about anything that is ahead of them, including the size and shape of an insect and which way it is going.

This system of finding prey is called echolocation. All bats have very big appetites, because flying uses up lots of energy. A common pipistrelle can eat over 3,000 tiny flies or midges in a single night!

In the month of August baby bats are making their first flights from the roost sites where they were born in June. For the first five weeks of life, bat pups are fed by their mothers’ milk but as they learn to fly they must also learn to catch the insects on which all adult bats feed.

This is the time of year when young bats often get lost and blunder into buildings by mistake.

If this happens in your house the best way to encourage the bat to find its own way out again is to close the internal door to the room, open any windows or external doors as widely as possible and switch off the lights.

After a short while the bat should find its own way out.

By the end of August the pups will have become fully independent and the summer maternity colonies formed by the pregnant females in May will disperse.

Bats will then start to appear at their mating sites where the males use special calls to attract females.

These social calls include purrs, clicks and buzzing and can often be heard by people with good hearing (children’s ears are best) as they are sometimes pitched at frequencies at the top end of the normal audible range. Hunting and feeding continues in earnest as the bats try to put on weight before their food supply disappears in winter.

Bats use a wide variety of places to shelter at different times of the year.

These roosts can be in buildings, both new and old where the most likely spots are behind loose slates, hanging tiles, external woodwork or in roof spaces. Some species prefer to roost in hollow trees or in caves or mines.

They like to shelter in draught-free places and they hate cobwebs, to dispel another myth! If you think you have a bat roost in your house, then the bat group would be interested to know as we use this information to monitor bat populations across the island.

The Manx Bat Group is happy to give advice or information about bats. We are an Isle of Man charity partnered to the UK’s Bat Conservation Trust. Phone our helpline on 366177, visit www.manxbatgroup.org or our Facebook page.