North Devon Bat Care

03/11/2024

Exciting and sad rescue today of a lesser horseshoe bat in my own village of Bishops Tawton, North Devon. Sadly the bat has been catted though fingers crossed it will recover. These bats use to roost in the village so it’s wonderful for me to know they are back.

18/09/2024

Another day and yet more catted bats coming in.
At this time of the year male bats call loudly for females, sadly cats can hear them too. Thankfully today’s bats are not too badly injured where as yesterdays bat didn’t make it through the night.

26/08/2024

Bats and Bank Holidays.
Keeping up the 10 year rescue pattern. Sadly another catted bat so not sure if she will pull through but I will try.

14/08/2024

And the sleepy bat carer did it again. Today more mealworms came for the bats and in my sleep deprived state I opened the giant mealworms into the mini mealworms. In my defence they came in the same size bag. Serves me right for just pouring them in without checking. Now the bat feeds are done and young bats are flying it’s time to sort this mess out. Wish me luck 🙂 send coffee, this take take a while.

13/08/2024

A huge thank you to all who have helped support me with the bat rescue this year. So far I have been able to get enclosures for 2 leislers & a Serotine and a pop up tent to fly baby bats in. Thank you.

11/08/2024

There is always a stage in the baby bat season where the sleep deprivation begins to show its affects. This is it for me this morning. I nearly gave the bats coffee for their breakfast rather than the milk feed they were expecting.

Lots of bats to feed including a new juvenile Serotine then off to try to wrangle my own little people for the day.

21/07/2024

Despite trying to take things a bit easier this year due to juggling my younger children, my new grandchild and my growing work in Grief support (Grief Support Box) and support for bereaved parents like myself (Vilomah Solace), the bats are still coming in thick and fast and taking up much of my time.

I have had bats come in via Taxi and motorbike this year. I have even had a bat that came in with its mum. The mum was was so worried about her missing injured baby that when she heard it she flew into the finders house and sat on the pen her baby was in until the finder unzipped it and she could go and settle with her baby. Both are now with me while the baby recovers from its injury and will hopefully both go back to the wild when ready.

As I am so busy with family and work commitments I’m not doing the bat talks and fundraising I use to be able to do so all the rescue work is coming out of my very limited pocket. I’m not good at asking for money as it’s my choice to help these bats but it’s hard trying to juggle all of it without an income.

10/07/2024

I love a bat rescue day where the first bat is delivered by taxi, the second another rescue kindly brought in (thank you Liz).

This evening I was able to safely reunite Taxi bat back to its mum in a roost that the home owner did not know they had. They were so proud of the roost.

A final call helping a finder get their young bat back into the roost successfully. Now to feed the ones that didn’t behave.

28/04/2024

This Geoff the Serotine who came in last week from Porlock. He was a very dehydrated and starved bat with sticky wings and was very sad it’s himself. Thankfully he has turned the corner and is on the road to recovery.
There has been a number of bats coming in as the bat season begins to pick up. Unfortunately I carn’t drive to collect bats all over the place this year so if anyone does find a bat I really do need there help in bringing it into care.

I’m going to be selling off some bat cuddly toys to raise much needed funds for the bat rescue. I will list photos on here and you can let me know which bat toy to you wish to adopt in return for some money for the bat rescue.

08/03/2024

The bats are beginning to get more active and get into more tricky situations.

This week I have had one Pipistrelle female come into care with a broken finger. She was found in the road so possibly got clipped by a vehicle.

Todays bat was not the Pipistrelle bat on its admission for, rather a male Lesser Horseshoe bat who fell out of a chimney. He will be returning to property as soon as he’s stronger.

14/01/2024

This week saw two new bats being handed over to vets after being found in cold weather in a wet cardboard box. Sadly one bat was already dead, the other is now in care and I hope she will pull through. It’s a strange situation and I’m just hugely greatful to the person who helped them. As for the person who dumped them out in a box in the first instance I am really sad that that’s what your chosen action was. The bats did nothing to deserve that action.

On a second note I seem to be getting more and more spam messages through the fb bat care page and endless threats that this page will be taken down. I’m now not sure what’s legitimate and what’s not. I just wanted to keep people aware so that if the rescue page does go down it’s not from a lack of trying to keep it showing up.

11/01/2024

It is with great sadness that I have to report that Daisy the Noctule sadly hasn’t made it into 2024. It’s take me a few days to get round to posting this message as I wanted to let Daisy’s original rescuers/ carer’s know what had happened.
Daisy passed away on New Years Eve. She was a lovely bat who helped calm and comfort other Noctules who came into care. She could often be heard talking to other bats late at night. She will be missed.

26/12/2023

Merry Christmas from North Devon Bat Care.
Thank you so much for your support over the year and the mealworms and donations that have been sent in this month. They really do make a huge difference.

Our oldest rescue bat Daisy the Noctule appears to be going through her last winter hibernation period. She’s over 20 years old now (or at least 20 years in care). As an old bat despite full care her body condition is not as it use to be, she hasn’t put on her full winter brown fat so it waking frequently, confused and not ready to be awake but also her body isn’t letting her sleep through this year. I think in the wild she would definitely be in her last winter hibernation. Thankfully in care I can keep a close eye on her and offer her food, rehydration fluids etc as and when needed, yet even with intervention we carn’t stop what will one day happy to her. For now I can just keep her comfy, settled and loved and take each day as it comes.

Her she is having a snack. You will see her eye doesn’t open fully now. Her vision isn’t as it was as a young bat, though as we all know, vision isn’t everything in the bat world.

10/12/2023

With the run up to Christmas if anyone would like to put the bats at North Devon Bat Care on Santas nice list, we would always be very grateful for any support. They all promise to behave and do their best to recover as swiftly as they can so they can be released back to the wild next year.

Funds raised help to cover the bats food bills and medical trips and procedures, daily care equipment items that need frequent restocking of replacing and enritchement. Repairs of the flight pen and care shed maintenance also have to be factored in so any support at all is very much appreciated.

Donations - Please use this page to donate to North Devon Bat Care.My name is Samantha Pickering and I run a small bat care unit, from home in Bishops Tawton, North Devon, where I work to rehabilitate and care for sick, injured and orphaned bats. The work I do is v...

08/12/2023

Even thought it’s time for bats to be hibernating bat carers arnt.
This week another couple of bats have come into care after being caught out by changing temperatures and a drop in natural food supplies. This is often juvenile bats who havn’t worked out the best places to hibernate during their first winter. Female juveniles tend to roost with an adult female (especially pipistrelles and Noctule bats) where as the juvenile males try to figure it all out for themselves. These hibernating female clusters are usually two to three bats only. From my experience anyway.

17/09/2023

Thank you to Liz Smith from Barny Hogs for helping collect a lesser horseshoe bat from Croyde for me and for the staff at Vets for Pets who helped end the suffering of this little boy. He had a badly broken wing with exposed bones. Bats out in the day, especially horseshoe bats, is a sign something isn’t right.

The second rescue call of the day ended up releasing itself from its box and then flying out of the finders front door that evening. It had clearly dried off and recovered from its swim the previous night.

29/08/2023

One Whiskered bat into care. Two Whiskered bats released (Premier Inn Barnstaple abd East the Water). Some nice time spent talking with some girls about bats and bat care, now own with final feeds before bed.

29/08/2023

Another evening standing at the side of the road waiting to help a bat finder navigate the final stages to bringing their bat into care. Time for the batty T-shirts :)