26/07/2026
🦇Right now, in roofs and ruins across Ireland, tiny wings are learning to fly in the dark.🌙
July is one of the busiest months in the bat calendar. Pups born in June are now fledging — taking their first flights from maternity roosts in old buildings, barns, and tree hollows. For the next few weeks, young bats are learning to navigate, hunt, and find their way home, all under cover of night.
One species feels this moment especially keenly: the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) — found almost nowhere else in these islands outside the west of Ireland, making our populations internationally important.
Why darkness matters so much to this bat: Lesser horseshoe bats are famously light-shy. Unlike some bats that will forage around a lit area, this species actively avoids artificial light — even a single streetlamp near a roost exit can delay bats from emerging to feed, or block a commuting route entirely. And these bats don't fly in the open; they follow "corridors" of hedgerow and treeline like a flight path. Light a gap in that hedge, and you can sever the route a colony has used for generations.
For fledgling bats making their first solo flights this month, a well-lit garden or a new floodlight isn't just inconvenient — it can mean a missed feeding night at a critical stage of growth, or a colony abandoning a roost altogether.
🌌 What helps, this month especially:
• Keep hedgerows and treelines near known roosts unlit
• Avoid new outdoor lighting close to old buildings, ruins, or churches (classic roost sites)
• If lighting is essential, use warm, low, shielded, downward-facing lights
• Support hedgerow connectivity — bats need continuous dark corridors, not just dark patches
A fledgling bat's first flight happens once. Let's make sure the dark corridor it needs is still there. 🦇✨
Bat Rehabilitation Ireland Bat Conservation Ireland Vincent Wildlife Trust No Trace Ireland Irish Environmental Network Heritage Council
