On a sunny Saturday afternoon George, myself and our visitors, Zsuzsi, Michael and Patri, visited ‘Kent Goes Wild’ at Shorne Country Park. The two marquees were full of interesting stands dealing with the many diverse aspects of nature in the county. We chose first to go on the dragonfly walk, where we were privileged to see several kinds of dragonflies and damselflies. This was followed by a butterfly walk. Although we saw one or two butterflies flitting about, this walk was less successful due to the lack of nectar available for these colourful insects. Because bats are not very prolific at Shorne, the bat walk was adjourned to Leeds Castle, where we watched over a hundred pipistrelle bats leave their roost as dusk fell. We were surprised to learn that each type of bat sends out a different frequency in order to echolocate. This can be picked up by a bat detector and thus establish the type of bat. It seems that there were many hundreds of bats about on this particular evening.
