A Scottish Wildlife Trust trainee, Helen Simmons, borrowed the Trust's new device, an Anabat detector, when she went home to Bute for a weekend last month. When out practising with the device, she discovered the lesser noctule or Leisler's bat and recorded its presence at the farthest point north on the west coast of Scotland. It is found locally across Europe and into western Asia as well as north-west Africa, Madeira and the Canary Islands. There are a few colonies in England and Wales, with the occasional wanderer in Scotland. Sometimes known as 'the hairy-armed bat', it emerges after sunset to satisfy its appetite for insects and moths and has adapted to surviving in parkland and urban areas, having been primarily a forest dweller.
Scottish Islands Explorer - aware that Bute has long attracted seasonal visitors
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