Cassie Horton

Having spent time volunteering at a White Lion reintroduction programme in South Africa, which involved monitoring many species, I realised that I should probably be making a difference closer to home.  I was inspired to join the Jersey Bat Group about 19 years ago because of a fascinating presentation by Ani Binet (ex JBG Chair) and have been hooked on bats ever since.

The group is incredibly welcoming and there’s tons of opportunities to learn about our bat population.  I armed myself with lots of bat facts (who knew Jersey had so many species) and became actively involved in the group’s events and monitoring programmes. 

As much as I’d love to see a Horseshoe bat, my favourite would have to be the Common Pipistrelle as that’s the one I see more often. Its nickname is the Bandit bat as it sports a Zorro style mask!

You may know that a group of bats in their roost is called a colony but when airborne they’re known as a cloud. There’s a colony of Mexican Free-tailed bats in Texas numbering 20 million. That’s one heck of a cloud when they head out to feed!

I ordered an Echo Meter Touch (it’s a plug in device for your phone – a bit like Google Translate for bats) and duly went to JT to purchase my first ever iPhone, explaining that I didn’t actually want to call anyone with it, but just to plug in the device.  I was informed that the staff have meetings where they discuss customer interactions and I was surely ‘weird customer of the week’.  I’ll happily take that!!