In a very different Community Mission, we met with other volunteers and task owners Ken and Philip at Richmond Bridge, just as night was about to fall. First timers Immi, Ollie and Charlotte joined us for this special task.

Our mission was to survey bats. We were taken through an introduction to the task, given bat detectors and shown how to identify one key species of bat each over the course of the night.

As a group we then followed our bat leaders to survey both sides of the River Thames for 2km upriver of Richmond Bridge. We stopped every 100m for two minutes to listen for our target bat species calls on our detectors.

As the sunset and it got dark, we were soon counting bats left, right and centre. We easily identified six species of bats and we counted several hundred in just over 40 minutes of surveying. The data was all recorded and will be verified later for publication by the Bat Conservation Trust. This data helps to learn more about how we can protect these incredible mammals. It is a scientific study which adds a whole new talent to our GoodGym skills! We also learned that one bat can eat over 1,000 mosquitoes in a night, they work hard too!

Ken and Philip thanked us all at the end and we went on our own way into the night, wondering how many bats were flying around that we never seem to see.