Last night in Hungary
One of the little extra wildlife treats was arranged by our guides. Bats! Unplanned a Common Noctule graced our teatime experience by flying and perching on one of the hotel walls. More ‘scope testing opportunities.
Once it was fully dark we were able to join a keen local bat researcher at a small lake, about 20 minutes walk from the hotel.
He regularly catches up to 11 different species here and in our brief visit we saw at least 5 :
- Daubenton’s
- Whiskered
- Barbastelle
- Brown Long-eared
- Bechstein’s
Bat Sounds. Using a bat detector and listening to their sounds, and the unnerving roaring and growling noises of other night-time insects is quite a different experience of nature.
We spent probably less than an hour there but managed at least 5 different species. Here are 4 of them. Hope I got the species right. Quite something on close views:
Bechstein’s Bat a rare species in Britain
Brown Long-eared Bat. Above 2 photos – quite a looker!
,
Barbastelle Bat : another rare one in my home country
Whiskered Bat- I think that’s right for this one?
Nils van Duivendijk enjoys the very bizarre sounds
A mist net is set up on the edge of a small woodland lake. So many wildlife wonders around and not enough time to do it all!
Of course we were forced to engage in other nocturnal activities, like a visit to this wine cellar followed by excellent meal and about 7 wine types needed sampling. This monster ‘keg’ was the largest in the cellar. The walls were amazingly covered in a mould which was essential to the temperature control.
