Albino bats in the UK?

Hi guys how rare are albino bats? And are they even supposed to exist in the UK? a few days ago i was in the garden with my girlfriend at around 11pm so it wasn't that dark yet when we heard something struggling in a tree with a bird then it flew out towards us so obviously we looked around and noticed a albino bat that was between 1 and 2 foot wide. Im not sure how big bats are but this was a big f****r and it was so close i had to duck because it nearly hit my head then it flew into a big tree in my neighbours garden, we kept trying to find it in the tree but conifers are hard to spot objects in.

reply to post by LvSLoLo

Hey well spotted!
This dude has taken some pics of one in the UK:



www.talkwildlife.com...

Originally posted by Silcone Synapse
reply to post by LvSLoLo

 

Hey well spotted!
This dude has taken some pics of one in the UK:

www.talkwildlife.com...

Thank you that picture validates what i witnessed, i thought it was weird to have a white body and gray wings. At first i thought it was a dove but when it nearly hit me i got a very close up look and thats exactly it

reply to post by LvSLoLo


Nice one-You are lucky to have seen it-I have loads of bats living in my roof and in the nearby woods,but I have never seen an albino.They must be really rare-maybe because they can be seen easily by owls in the dark?

Look out for it again.


Edit:
Oh by the way-you can get something called a "bat detector" from Amazon which listens to bats,and then converted the sounds to within human hearing.They are about £60,and you can plug them into recording devices.
I only heard about it this morning on Radio4-they had David Gower(the cricket guy)listening to bats with his detector.
You can distinguish different species according to their sounds.

Pretty cool,I may get one one day.
www.amazon.co.uk...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339256084&sr=8-1

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Cool thanks for the info =) can the albino bat be more than 1 species? because whatever nearly hit me was very big for a bat

reply to post by LvSLoLo


I think most kinds of mammals can be albino.
If it was a big bat you saw, it may have been a noctule-the largest UK bat is the noctule-with a hefty 16inch wingspan!
They are rare enough,but an albino one of those would be a media worthy event IMO-get your local paper on the case maybe.

A bat expert brings a bat out from a nest box for Bill Oddie to see. It is a female noctule bat, the biggest British bat, though despite a wingspan of 16 inches she in reality quite small - big long wings but a tiny body! The bat boxes have been put up to give the bats a helping hand, because habitat loss means there are fewer natural roost sites for them.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Good list of bat UK native bat species on wiki here as well:
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Ok thanks for all the help man sorry it took so long to reply. Well whatever species it was it was fighting with a bird in a tree and i didnt know they did that?

No worries,some replies can take months round here.
Hmm,never heard of that before-could be it accidentally disturbed a nest and got attacked by a parent bird .
Maybe the bat saw/heard some juicy bugs too close to the nest for the bird's comfort.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Possibly but whatever happened it was a loud noise lol, ive just been in my garden again and it was in a conifer my gf noticed it near the top then it flew off into a tree 3 houses away