BAT watchers are being asked to help find out whether Otley has become a Mecca for the country's smallest mammal.

It is believed more than the average number of bats - attracted by the bat friendly habitat - have made their home in the town and now a bat group is calling on people to join it in establishing just how many colonies there are.

The group has already carried out a count of Pipistellus pipistrellus - the smallest of Britain's mammals - which revealed 300 in just one spot - up to 250 more than would

normally have been expected.

And now it is calling on as many people as possible to join forces one evening in June to carry out a count at the same time.

Maggie Brown, Otley representative of the West Yorkshire Bat Group, said if Otley emerged as a 'bat hotspot' the town could be recognised as a place for outside experts to come and study.

"The purpose of our survey is to expand knowledge of what species of bats live in and around Otley and to try and establish how many bats, approximately, there may be," she said.

Over the weekend of Friday, June 2 to Sunday, June 4, the group will be joined by

batworkers, including Dr Colin Catto of the National Bat Monitoring Programme, of the Department of the environment, to help with the identification and monitoring.

Mrs Brown said: "We decided to organise this to establish that Otley is an excellent habitat for wildlife and results from the survey may help us to show that Otley supports better than average bat populations."

In order to get the most

correct information, the group is hoping people who know about bats in their area will spend a short time counting just how many they see.

"We recorded more than 300 Pipistrellus pipistrellus on one site in Otley and that is a species that we would normally expect to see 50 to 250 in a colony.

"The trouble is we can't be everywhere at the same time. We can look at bats in one part of the town but we can't be sure that they are not the same bats that are moving around," she said.

The group will be using the latest technology to record the number of bats and colonies but it is hoping to encourage people to share their own local knowledge.

"We are attempting at least one night detector survey where trained volunteers using bat detectors map all bats seen flying, to establish sites

that are important for bat activity.

"Counts start at sunset and take up an hour usually finishing before total darkness falls. Instructions will be given by the bat group and totals on each night will used to try and census the bats," said Mrs Brown.

l Information sheets with contact numbers for the group are available from Otley Library, Boroughgate or from the Wharfedale Observer, 9 Orchard Gate, Otley.

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