Bats

Extensive limestone mining beneath DZG’s Castle Hill site has left surface holes ideal for facilitating bat colonisation.

Conservation work has seen grilles fitted to shafts and caves to allow bat migration and the movement of air needed to encourage successful colonisation and the erection of bat boxes around the site.

Pipistrelle bats can commonly be seen on Castle Hill in the summer months and Horseshoe bats have also been sighted.

And a population survey reported that Natterers, Brandt's and Daubenton's regularly use Big Ben Cavern, adjacent to the DZG site, for roosting.

DZG offers a wide range of foraging habitats for bats: woodland, pasture, open paths, pools, wasteland and shrubberies, and is managing its habitat to provide sheltered feeding areas as well as roost sites to encourage the population.

This is a long-term project due to the fact that most bats only wean one offspring every two years.