Natur am Byth! Barbastelles in Pembrokeshire

We’re delighted to be a partner in Natur am Byth! – Wales’s flagship Green Recovery project. Thanks to the players of The National Lottery, the partnership has been awarded more than £4.1m from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to deliver the country’s largest-ever natural heritage and outreach programme to save species from extinction and reconnect people to nature.

Natur am Byth aims to re-establish resilient ecosystems around Wales by empowering local communities to take ownership of their natural landscapes. The programme strives to encourage people from all walks of life in Wales feel that they belong in, enjoy and care for nature, whilst ensuring that people and wildlife flourish together in recovering habitats.

VWT is championing the secretive barbastelle — Ystlum du — Barbastella barbastellus, which has only been recorded in a few isolated colonies in Pembrokeshire.

Barbastelles are one of our rarest bats in the UK, and Pembrokeshire is a stronghold for the species — it is, in fact, the only place in Wales where barbastelles are known to have breeding colonies. There are three key areas in the county where roosts have been identified — Pengelli National Nature Reserve, the Cleddau estuary woodlands, and Colby Woodland Garden, however there are numerous other areas where barbastelles have also been recorded.

The barbastelle’s favoured habitat is old-growth forests with lots of oak and beech trees. They roost under flaking bark and in cracks and splits often found in older trees that have been damaged or left to decay. Modern forestry practices tend to remove these trees due to health and safety concerns and lack of commercial value, which means there are fewer suitable roost sites for this woodland specialist. The bats can travel up to 20km each night to forage across parkland, meadows and woodlands, and they rely heavily on connected landscapes, such as continuous woodland and hedgerows, for navigation and for safety.

The Barbastelle Project in Wales

Thanks to a recent paper by NRW and VWT in British Island Bats, we have a great summary that shows a spread of acoustic records across Wales but no ‘in-the-hand’ records or signs of breeding other than in small isolated colonies in Pembrokeshire and some evidence in southeast Wales from Stephen Davison. This project is working with local communities and volunteers to carry out acoustic surveys across woodlands in Pembrokeshire to find out more about the presence or absence of this rare species, to build and install barbastelle bat boxes and to improve habitat and connectivity in areas where barbastelles are found.