Air Date: Week of June 21, 2013

The echo-location calls of a pair of Noctule bats, as they dive for insects on a June evening in Kent England, from the British Library cd, Vanishing Wildlife.

Transcript

CURWOOD: We leave you this week in the company of bats.

[MUSIC: “Noctule Bat” from Vanishing Wildlife: A Sound Guide To Britain’s Endangered Species (British Library Sound Archive 2006)]

[BAT CALLS]

In the company of Nyctalus Noctula, the Noctule bat, common across Europe, Asia and North Africa. It's a little over three inches long, with a wing-span of 13 inches.

These are the echo-location calls of a pair of Noctule bats, diving to catch insects on an early June evening, in Kent, England.

Like many bats, Noctules are threatened by intensive agriculture, pesticides and the loss of roosting sites, but so far British bats show no traces of the deadly white-nose syndrome that's killed so many bats in the US.

[BAT CALLS]

These were recorded by Richard Ranft for the British Library CD Vanishing Wildlife.