Yesterday morning dawn time, I went into the garden and saw something flying around, not like a bird, but really big, around 5" wide, must have been an extraordinary huge moth or eventually a bat? It was a bit scary for me, never seen something like that before. I have seen bats only on telly. I had grown sunflowers from seeds in May, which I thought was a bit too late. But despite drought, they fought and survived. One of them flowers now, and it's the first really beautiful flower head I've had in 3 years growing sunflowers.
We have lots of bats around here @Simone_in_Wiltshire 😊 … we often sit out in the dusk and watch them flying about the garden, just above our heads, catching night-flying moths, mosquitos and, in May and June they feast on the chafers that are eating the ash tree leaves.
Fascinating creatures and nothing to be scared about. 😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
@Dovefromabove they're great aren't they? We have bats who flit around right near the house in about May/June, (often they'll dip down quite near my head as they fly by) but then they disappear! I don't know where they live, how big bats' stomping grounds are, etc. I suppose I could wander round the village at dusk, eyeing the big old houses and barns, but I'd probably get my collar felt.. 😄
@Slow-worm 'ours' live in a mediaeval chalk mine dug into the side of a wooded hill just a few metres from here ... it's an SSSI and protected now ... but apparently there are several smaller roosts in the roofs of houses etc in the village, and summer roosts in hollow trees in the area.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We did a bat walk last year and had clouds of pipistrelles flitting about inches above our heads. They were after the midges which we were attracting by breathing out CO2. Nobody got any bats tangled up in their hair, if they can hunt tiny midges in deep twilight then they are unlikely to crash into big humans.
Usually we see bats in Autumn, as I am told that is the time they switch to the winter roosts. This year they are already here and have been for almost a month. I suppose midges could be fewer in numbers after the heat.
@Dovefromabove I think I still have that story in my head that I was told about a neighbour in the 4th floor who had a bat in her hair and couldn’t get rid of it. That was 50 years ago.
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I had grown sunflowers from seeds in May, which I thought was a bit too late. But despite drought, they fought and survived. One of them flowers now, and it's the first really beautiful flower head I've had in 3 years growing sunflowers.
I ♥ my garden.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I ♥ my garden.