Our joint monitoring project with the Moors for the Future Partnership (MFFP) has now recorded the highest altitude bats ever found in Derbyshire at 613 metres, just below the highest point in the county.
The Anabat Express detector was left out for two weeks during July and August at one of MFFP’s monitoring sites which last year recorded no bats during a cold week in May. This time the weather was much kinder on Kinder and an impressive total of five species was found: common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, noctule, brown long-eared bat and one of the Myotis species. With up to 35 bat passes per night, some extended periods of contact and activity at all times of the night it seems likely that some bats are using this habitat rather than simply commuting over.
The site on the Kinder Scout plateau was severely degraded bare peat as recently as 2011 when MFFP started restoration work there but now has a healthy cover of vegetation including sphagnum. It brings the total of previously blank tetrads which now have bat records thanks to the project to seven.
Alan Roe
Derbyshire Bat Group Recorder
