Baby bats managed to be saved after clinging to curtains to escape the heat.
A group of baby bats were born in the loft of a house in Taunton. However, it quickly became far too hot for the bats to survive. Their only chance was to crawl out to the airing cupboard and then cling on to curtains to escape the deadly heat.
The baby bats were then taken to a wildlife centre in Somerset to continue their recovery. Experts from the centre thought that initially the loft would have been nice and cool for the bats so they would have thought it was a perfect place for their young. However, suddenly the loft would have become too hot. The baby bats are now being hand-weaned and need to be fed every 15 minutes! Eventually, the bats will be re-released into the wild.
The bats are three-week old pipistrelle bats, the smallest and most common bat in the UK. Although these bats are not threatened, their numbers have declined over the past decade. Pipistrelle are between 3.5 and 4.5cm long and their wingspan is 19-25cm. They only weight between 3 and 8g and the maximum recorded age is 16 years. It was lucky that these particular pipistrelle bats could cling to the curtains to escape as they are unable to fly until they are 4 weeks.
Although the pipistrelle often roosts in buildings, it is rare to find them in the lofts of homes. In winter, they use trees, buildings, large churches and cellars and they hibernate from mid-November to the beginning of April.