Over the last few months there have been quite a few sightings of Bats in Whalsay. Several of the pupils have seen (and heard them). Ms Irvine saw two bats at Hamister and even managed to get a smudgy photo of one as it flew past her.
Mrs Simpson’s S2 class were full of questions that she couldn’t answer so she decided to invite our local Bat expert, Mr Pete Gulliver, to visit the class.
Pete came into school on 3rd December and gave a fascinating talk and slide show. He has tracked and monitored bats for years and often cares for injured or exhausted bats. He had amazing footage of a bat flying around his hallway at home. He took in the equipment he uses to listen to bats and played audio clips, explaining how to distinguish between the different species. In one sound clip there were 4 different species of bat identified at one time. What shocked everybody was that this sound clip came from Skerries a couple of months ago!
Bella Jamieson, who only recently took up crocheting, had made a beautiful bat (without a pattern!) as a thank you gift. Bella presented this to Pete on behalf of the whole class.
Pete messaged later to say “The pupils were wonderful and very attentive. Please make a special point of thanking Bella for my beautiful gift, I am thrilled with it and am going to name it ‘Pip’ ”.
The feedback from the pupils was very good. Several said they were now much more interested in seeing a bat and knew what to look out for and when. One pupil stated they thought Mr Gulliver was very kind to be devoting so much time and effort into caring for bats and helping release injured ones back into the wild. Everybody left the talk much more informed and enthusiastic about bats so the whole class would like to say a HUGE thank you again to Pete.
