We're bats for Cheddar!

You may not know, because it is one of "Somerset's Best Kept Secrets", that Cheddar Caves houses the largest colony of Greater Horseshoe bats in the country ... and they are Britain's rarest mammals. We recently learned that:

We have had a hibernaculum for many years containing around 40 youngsters brought here by their mums to hibernate over their first Winter. A bit like a Victorian orphanage .... so one day we put a greenhouse heater in Gough's Old Cave and now we have a year round colony of 450 males and females of all ages. It's become the largest Greater Horseshoe bat breeding site, nursery and hibernaculum in the country.

Every Monday in July and August, as dusk falls and the bats emerge to feed on insects, visitors by booking up on 01934-742343 can join our Conservation Office on a Bat Patrol. On most evenings visitors, using our ultra-sonic bat detectors, can detect Greater and Lesser Horseshoes, Pipistrelles, Noctules, Daubentons and others from their different sonar frequencies.

For more details on this rather fun-sounding activity, take a look at the Cheddar Caves website