06/10/2026
🦇🦇🦇FoQP volunteers hosted QP's first bat awareness event on Friday (2nd Oct) as part of the SWT's Conservation Connections series for young people. It was a fabulous success! This session was led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Young Leaders programme and FoQP's biodiversity recording volunteers.
After a pretty touch-and-go rain storm (including a threat of thunder from MetOffice!) the clouds lightened and the evening sun appeared, enabling the group of ten to congregate in Queen’s Park around the ponds to learn about and observe bats in the wild. There was no disappointment, the bats put on a show! The specialist detecting equipment was going off pretty non-stop for the whole two hours. The group detected three species that evening: the common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, and the Daubenton’s bat, picking up their echolocation calls as they foraged for their evening meal after emerging around sunset through to the end of twilight.
All the participants got the opportunity to use the bat detectors. Props brought by the ecologists helped the attendees understand the differences between some of Scotland’s bat species.
It was a lovely welcoming event, a space for learning, questions, and community connections formed between the participants – with a cosy pub visit afterwards to warm up after the chilly autumnal evening and more bat-chat! The group left feeling inspired and more aware of the vital role that bats play in our ecosystems. Thank you to everyone involved - invluding the bats! - it really was a collaborative effort and a fabulous event.
Scottish Wildlife Trust run a programme of Conservation Connections events, look them up online and on social media to find out more.
🦇🦇🦇FoQP biodiversity recording volunteers are going to run a few more bat awareness evening events in QP through October. Watch this space, and Eventbrite for booking details!
