Monthly Archives: July 2011

Many thanks to Diane Gregory of the West Yorkshire Bat Group who led a wonderful bat walk.The photograph does not do justice to the evening – but unfortunately, due to an oversight, it is the only one your correspondent took!

There were 38 (!) of us, including a pleasing number of children, and due to Diane’s prior “casing of the joint” we were treated to a wonderful display of aerial acrobatics of up to a dozen bats at very close range – on occasions only a couple of feet over our heads – accompanied by a cacophony of clicks and raspberries from the bat detectors.

Most of the bats were common pipistrelle, but towards the end of the evening (about 10.30pm) some [   ] appeared.  Then, on a sudden, as magically as they arrived, the bats left and the bat detectors fell silent, leaving only the excited hum of conversation.

BTCV are to start the process of restoring Adel Bog to its full glory with the aid of funding from Alwoodley Parish Council and a grant from Access to Nature.  The bog has been slowly been turning to dry land in the process of succession – the taking over by “non-bog” species, in this case primarily purple moor grass and birch trees.

The Bog is the only site in Leeds to have the heath spotted orchid and this morning we counted just short of forty in flower, so the habitat is definitely worth saving.

BTCV will do seven days of work on the bog during August, clearing back the tree line and removing encroaching species.

Sara and Win see the funny side after some heavy duty litter picking.

While Win and Sara were litter picking, about a dozen of us were clearing saplings from Adel Moor.

We had two sightings of the common lizard – which needs the open heathland to survive.  So keep pulling Tina – only another five hundred trees to go!