I am a UK-based ecologist and nature photographer who has been surveying bats for over 20 years, and photographing them in flight since spring 2020. My UK bat survey license allows me to use flash at roosts as an incidental part of my ecological survey work.
I began by photographing the lesser horseshoe bats at a small ‘night roost’ on our property. I used an infra-red camera system to avoid disturbance and photographed the bats as part of my ongoing roost monitoring work. Lesser horseshoe is a rare species in Britain and numbers in this roost are low – usually between one and three individuals per night – but the bats visit regularly so the site was perfect for initial experimentation.