One man's life-long love of bats led to the creation of a fully-fledged bat hospital, taking in Britain's most misunderstood creatures from far and wide.
Real life "Batman" Harold Green, 72, turned his passion for bats into a full-time job after his retirement, setting up the Billinge Bat Rescue with his friend Michael Smith in 2013.
More than 500 bats from Wigan, Skelmersdale, Chorley and Warrington owe their lives to the small rescue, located in a specially made "bat cave" in Harold's Billinge home, as the men typically look after 50 to 100 sick and injured bats each year.
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Harold said: "From being a little boy, I've always loved nature. When I was being brought up, it was mainly farmers' fields around here. I became obsessed with bats."
Harold takes in all types of British bat, from the common pipistrelle to the elusive barbastelle, found almost exclusively in southern England and Wales.
Harold said: "In this area, we see mainly common pipistrelle, whiskered bats, Daubentons, Noctules, and brown long-eared bats. Last year I rescued, in Bootle, a barbastelle. When I got it in the box I couldn't get home quick enough to check if it was the bat I thought it was – it was that rare of a find.
"Last year I went to an undertakers. All the alarms had gone off in the night, and there was a bat flying around the room. When I arrived they said 'this room here – but I must warn you, there's a body in a coffin'. I went in and there was nowhere for the bat to hide. There was an old gentleman lying in the coffin, fully dressed, and in the button of the waistcoat was the head of a bat poking out!"
He was once called to a house in Tinsley, Sheffield, where a 16-year-old girl had been terrified by the sight of a bat peering over the shower curtain as she washed, and on another occasion was given a bat by an 80-year-old woman, who had been keeping it in the pocket of her dressing gown.
He said: "We feed all our bats on mealworms. In winter they're kept in cages on heater pads, because you can't let an underweight bat fall asleep when its body wants to hibernate.
"We take the bats for a test fly before they're released, and when they're able to fly for 15 minutes plus, then night the bats are not fed. The night after, it is released, and because it's hungry it will fly straight for food."
As well as looking after needy bats, the Billinge Bat Rescue runs regular "bat walks" in Formby, Leyland, Warrington, and Cutacre Country Park, and visits schools to educate children about protecting wildlife. Harold also carries out bat surveys, which assess the presence of roosting bats on potential building sites.
He said: "We need bats more than bats need us. The smallest bat in the country, the pipistrelle, will consume between 2,000 and 3,000 midges each night plus greenfly, ladybirds, moths. All British bats eat insects that attack our crops. They're nature's insecticides.
"Some species, sadly, are not thriving. For years there was only one known mouse-eared bat in the country, a male found in a tunnel on the south coast. When he disappeared a couple of years ago, we thought we'd lost him. Then he reappeared in January, and there was a second one found. It's the rarest mammal in the British Isles.
"The problem, I believe, is the amount of chemicals sprayed onto the land, poisoning insects that attack crops. These are the foundations of food not only for bats, but for birds as well. The insects that they feed on are being killed and it is disrupting the food chain. About half of all British birds are in decline."
Some 48% of bird species decreased in population in just five years between 2015 and 2020, according to Government data. Birds such as the turtle dove, capercaillie, tree sparrow and grey partridge are now less than a tenth of their numbers from 50 years ago.
Harold said: "If the EU law for the protection of wildlife gets squashed, we will see the bat population drastically decline, bevause bats will lose the little protection they have got, along with newts, water voles, all our endangered species will be lost. It will be a huge loss for Britain."
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