One of the highlights of being outdoors as dusk falls on a long summer’s evening is to see, or sometimes just sense, a bat flying past.

These magical creatures can be identified by the way they fly - the common pipistrelle has an erratic flight, the brown long-eared bat has a slow and hovering flight, and Daubenton’s bat usually flies low over water.

These types of bat can all been seen on the island.

It is illegal to handle a bat if you do not have a Bat Handling Licence.

If you find an injured or grounded bat, you must call the Manx Bat Group (366177), the Department of the Enviornment, Food and Agriculture (685844) or the ManxSPCA (851672 - and we will contact the relevant agencies).

All bat species, their breeding sites and resting places are protected by law, although licenses can be obtained if disturbing bats is unavoidable (e.g. when demolishing a house).

The UK bat population has declined over the past century due to changes in habitat, use of pesticides and intensive farming practices and so the special protection they enjoy is needed in order to secure their existence.

The bat species found in the Isle of Man eat insects, using echo-location and their amazing flying skills to catch even the smallest of prey, and moths are often high up on the menu!

Discarded moths’ wings are usually a sign that bats are roosting above, either in a roof space or a tree.

We don’t get many calls about bats in comparison to the number of calls about birds, especially at this time of year.

The aviary is full, and our statistics show that 121 birds have been cared for in the first half of the year.

The majority have been herring gull chicks, ducklings and corvids (the family name for rooks, jackdaws, crows, etc) but we have also seen rarer species such as herons, sparrow hawks and seabirds such as shags and cormorants. When possible we take injured birds straight to the vets for immediate treatment and so they don’t actually come into the aviary, and we encourage members of the public to do the same.

Sadly, an injured wild bird that allows itself to be caught by a human is usually very badly hurt and shocked, and so the mortality rate in is fairly high.

The majority of birds that come into the aviary, though, do survive and are often given a ’soft release’ from the pens, which means they are able to come and go freely, and food and shelter are still available for them.

Sometimes these birds ’hang around’ Ard Jerkyll for months, even years, after their release and they co-exist peacefully.

The aviary and cattery are located in separate areas of Ard Jerkyll, because it is important to keep a distance between predator and prey species.

Even the gentlest of cats can be a merciless killer when it comes to birds, and this is probably the biggest downside to owning a cat. There are a million or more reasons to own one, though, and we have some very special cats in our cattery at the moment.

Ruth, a seven-year-old Tabby, has the most expressive face and although she came to us recently as a semi-feral farm cat she was simply too friendly to go back to a feral environment. She is still quite shy, and so a quiet home away from busy roads will suit her best; and she needs to live with other cats (which is something we don’t say very often because cats are usually happy on their own). Could you add Ruth to your family?

Cleo is definitely a solitary cat, and she will need to be the only cat in a household.

She’s just one year old and she is a bundle of energy, and definitely ’rules the roost’. She has lived with children and has the confidence to be around a busy household, but she can get a bit over excited and so this will need to be a consideration with very young children.

The cattery has many more cats waiting to meet their new owners, and so pop along to Ard Jerkyll between 1pm and 4pm to meet them, any day except for Thursdays.