We understand how frustrating it is to get the message from your ecology company that the survey cannot go ahead because of the weather!
Please be patient and understand that your frustration is as keenly felt by us as it is by you!
Every year we aim to support our clients in advising and supporting them through initial assessments, organising surveys to understand the behaviour and species of the bats if found and subsequent mitigation in order for their plans to support, enhance and abide by the law of this protected species.
All bats are protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. This legislation makes it an offence to destroy, damage or block access to a bat roost or deliberately or recklessly injure or kill any bat. Local Planning Authorities have an obligation to ensure any proposed development will not affect any roosting bat(s).
To ensure that we abide by best practice and produce a reliable report that the local planning office have confidence with, we have to conduct each bat survey in optimal weather conditions.
The weather remains key to recording the bats behaviour -extensive research has been done to understand how the weather affects bats behaviour and this is why we must ensure that optimal weather conditions are present in order for the bat survey that is being undertaken can go ahead and can give us reliable data to understand how the bats are behaving around the project.
Wet bats use twice as much energy as dry ones to stay aloft, therefore they tend to stay inside and keep nice and dry, they will head out when the rain stops and feast on all the bugs and moths available to them. Added to the extra effort needed for the bats to fly in wet conditions, the rain means that their main source of food hides away too - one bat can eat up to 3000 insects a night. The wind speed also means that the bats will not fly out, again saving up their energy supplies against difficult flying conditions.
The temperature also plays an important part in the bats behaviour with them preferring warm conditions.
So with all those constraints to be aware of enims constantly strive to conduct each survey with optimal weather conditions, to provide you with a comprehensive and reliable report that our clients can confidently submit to the planning authority.
This may mean some frustrating days and delays to the surveys because of the great British weather, but we aim to re-arrange as soon as practical.
Do you need further information on Bat Surveys? Please see our previous post about how enims conduct our bat surveys here, alternatively please don't hesitate to get in touch.
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