Ever wondered what happens in West Ham Park after the gates are shut for the evening? Well the nocturnal animals come out to play, and recently over 100 people enjoyed a fantastic flying display by the local bats that come into the park of an evening to feed.

The bats come to feed on small flying insects, which they find using echo location, rather like the way submarines see underwater. They emit sound waves when they are hunting which bounce off the flying insects, and the bat can then ‘see’ where they are to catch and eat them. The sound waves are too high pitched to be heard by human ears, but they can be picked up by special receivers tuned to the sound wave frequencies emitted by bats. It is even possible to identify the different species of bat by the soundthat they make.

The bats in West Ham Park are mostly pipistrelle bats. They are small, with a wing span of 20cm.They come to the park about half an hour after sunset to feed, usually around the trees and 5 to 10m above the ground where most of the insects will be fly- ing. They fly very quickly and can be difficult to see sometimes, but with the special receivers they can always be heard!

Each year the Friends of West Ham Park hold bat watching evenings in August and September where with permission from the park staff, guests are ‘locked in’ the park after closing time to see the bats flying, before being let out at one of the gates to go home. The bats are of course wild, so whether they come to the park that evening and how many of them come is not predictable but they do not usually let us down!

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