Halloween is not the only time when visitors to Blenheim Palace can spot colonies of bats taking to the skies – the Oxfordshire estate is one of the richest bat locations in the region, supporting at least 12 of the UK’s 17 resident species.
Bats recorded on the Blenheim Estate include the rare Barbastelle, Lesser Horseshoe and Nathusius’s Pipistrelle. It is estimated there are hundreds of these flying mammals living across the Blenheim Estate.
The bats occupy the wide variety of habitats across the estate, from the historic parkland and woodland to the lake and farmland. Bats make use of the numerous buildings and structures including the Seven Arches Bridge, Flagstaff gate – and in secret rooms underneath the magnificent Grand Bridge, which is home to a colony of Daubenton’s bat, including around 60 breeding females.
Blenheim Estate has long worked with the Oxfordshire Bat Group which has installed bat boxes to encourage roosting in the Grand Bridge and the Ice House, to improve hibernation and summer roosting conditions.
On its many projects to maintain and restore the historic buildings and landscape of the World Heritage Site, the Blenheim Estate has worked closely with award-winning ecology consultancy BSG Ecology to identify and monitor the rare bat colonies, which has involved the ecologists abseiling down the Grand Bridge with miniature endoscope cameras. Over the last 10 years, BSG Ecology has developed a good understanding of the bats of the Palace, which helps plan in advance how best to work with bats on each new project.
Dr Peter Shepherd, director at BSG Ecology, commented: “Blenheim Estate is such a rich environment and a wonderful range of habitats – it has the perfect combination of woodland, water and parkland – for the bats it’s like building a dream home in the middle of Waitrose.”
He added: “Blenheim Estate is doing a lot for bats – protecting the roosts in the Grand Bridge, the Grotto and the Palace itself – and its good land management and the restoration of the Queen Pool will also improve bat foraging habitat.”
The bat species identified to date at Blenheim Palace are:
- Nathusius’s pipistrelle
- Barbastelle
- Lesser horseshoe
- Daubenton’s
- Common Pipistrelle
- Soprano pipistrelle
- Leisler’s
- Noctule
- Brown Long-eared
- Natterer’s
- Serotine
- Whiskered
