Along the road, somewhere in county Kerry I recently did a discovery. While on one of my journeys I stopped to take autumn photos and also to take a look at this cottage. I had often wondered while passing who would have lived there long ago, and why the people left, and where did they go, maybe across the sea to America as a lot of Irish people emigrated there in the late 19th or early 20th century. Anyway the house is boarded up but still looks in good repair. It is nestled among beech and other native trees, now beautifully coloured, and it looks out down the valley with hills in the distance. Some of the land is bog-like with a variety of grasses and sedges, some rocky outcrops and low bushes, and lots of bracken, beech and birch trees, a mixture of colour at this time of year.
To my surprise I found a notice fastened to the wall of this cottage, it happens to be a roosting place for bats, and in particular for the lesser horseshoe bat. An organisation covering both Ireland and England called the ‘Vincent Wildlife Trust’ has a long and successful history of establishing and managing reserves for rare bat species. It manages 37 sites in Ireland, England, and Wales, all of which are roosts of the greater or lesser horseshoe bat. In Ireland, the Trust manages 12 reserves for the lesser horseshoe bat. And so this cottage has been put to very good use.
Website: Vincent Wildlife Trust Ireland | Managing Bat Reserves
The beautiful surroundings and peaceful countryside is a great place to let the bats find their space and hopefully continue to survive.
The landscape during autumn
Futher reading: https://vwt-production.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/VWT-Ireland/Resources/Lesser-Horseshoe-Bat-Species-Action-Plan.pdf
It was a great discovery, seeing how much effort is put into conservation of native wildlife.
agoyvaerts 
Very interesting. We visited a retired show cave that was near the Wisconsin River that was donated to a conservation trust to shelter an endangered population of brown bats that are affected by the white nose fungus. A few weeks later, we had a brown bat flying around our house. My husband woke up at 2:00 a.m. to the sound of our young cat yelping. (We think she managed to grab it and it nipped her. Neither bat nor cat was harmed.) We opened door and tried to drive it out of the house, but it was raining and the bat wouldn’t fly out into the rain. Eventually, after consulting with experts, my husband managed to catch and release it without harming it. We still don’t know how it got into the house!
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That is an amazing story, of course bat’s can fit into narrow spaces, but it is still unbelievable that they would enter a house. I used to see them flying around our houses a few years ago, but not lately. They are very curious (as in interesting) creatures I think. Interesting comment, thank you.
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It is fairly common here to get a bat in through the attic vents occasionally. By law in our state, if the bat is in the attic, it has to be removed alive. If the bat is in the living space of a house, it can be killed and removed. We consider bats precious–we don’t kill them. Like birds, they will leave a house initially if you open doors and windows, but in our case it was raining (bats have a hard time echolocating in rain), so my husband had to find it (with the help of our cat who stayed parked below the shelf on which it was hiding) and capture and carry it outside to release. He then made cages of fine wire for all of our roof vents, so there would be no chance of another finding its way in.
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That is a very kind way of dealing with the bat, it is great to hear from so many people showing kindness to creatures. I’m glad that the cat did not get it but helped you to find it.
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yes !!
such a good idea
the bath’s hostal 😉
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Agnes thank you very much for your blog and professional photos. I love reading and looking at them.
Best wishes
Colin
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Thank you very much for your kind comment Colin.
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Bedankt voor de heel mooie beelden en fijn dat de vleermuizen er een leef-n rustplaats vinden.
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A fascinating bat preservation project and delightful photographs
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Thank you very much Derrick, wonderful isn’t it.
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That was an interesting find. I would not enter into a house of bats.
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🙂 I’ve only ever seen them flying over the garden at night myself.
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very interesting, thank you
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Thank you very much Philip!
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Just WONDERFULLLLL again WaauW so nice xxx
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Thank you very much Chandler and Chloe xx
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That’s a great use to put an abandoned cottage to. I think bats are really cool; it’s sad that most people don’t seem to care about how endangered they are. Lovely autumn pictures too, as always.
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Thank you. And indeed it is Julia, great to see it happening. It came as a surprise to me too as I did not even realise that these bats were or still are endangered.
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