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Last updated: 18/1/2012
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Elliot the Eco Bat is looking forward to this very special Year. Not only is it the year of the bat (2011-2012), it is also the year of the Olympic Games which is being held in London (he would love to have entered a bat race if there had been one but sadly there is nothing whatever for bats!) So
instead he will be visiting Stafford area Eco Schools, which always gets him very excited. He knows he will meet lots of eco friendly children and their teachers who are doing all sorts of exciting things to help the environment.
See Elliot’s blog last year which tells you more about this very special year and for more details about activities in the UK see the following bat websites Year of the Bat and Bats Organisation UK
Elliot has enjoyed visiting more Stafford schools this year and learning what the children have been doing to help wildlife and to help the natural environment. He loved joining in and helping them with their Eco projects.
Elliot had a wonderful time at Marshlands – as the following entry in his eco-diary shows:
Elliot was invited to St Andrew’s School in May 2011 and he enjoyed being there so much that he was still there until September.
During that time the pupils visited a very exciting place in July, which they called “Tellytubby-Land” where they went to look for plants and made special cocktails from certain leaves which had a
distinctive smell. Could that be the scent of the curry plant? There were also bridges made from tubes and a rope swing which they enjoyed playing on.
At the end of September Elliot helped the pupils at St Andrew’s plant some bulbs especially for the 150th birthday of the school.
One pupil says:
“We enjoyed planting bulbs, even the parents joined in. Next spring the bulbs will sprout into the shape of our school logo, which is an oak tree.
“Dobbies helped us and Elliot to plant the bulbs and they showed us how to use a dobber, which is a gardening tool.”
Elliot really enjoyed helping the pupils at St. Andrew’s at their Eco Schools Day.
Elliot says these are some of my eco-friends from St. Andrew’s.
In May last year Elliott was invited to St Andrew’s to attend a very special occasion. An Ugly Bug Ball was held and the children all dressed up as moths, ladybirds, bees, butterflies, ants and other insects, some of which Elliot likes to eat – but he was on his best behaviour and didn’t eat a single bug! Instead he joined in with the fun and had the time of his life.
St Andrew's Pupils ready for the Ugly Bug Ball in May 2011
Although bats are nocturnal creatures they do sometimes emerge to hunt for insects during the day.
This is more common on mild winter days or during the early spring when bats wake naturally from hibernation and come out to stock up their reserves and hunt insects that may also have emerged because of the mild weather. After this they go back to their hibernation site to sleep until the next mild spell.
If the weather is very bad then bats will not go out at night to feed; so if there has been a period of bad weather, bats will sometimes risk hunting during the day in order to get enough food.
Staffordshire Bat Group has a small team of dedicated volunteers who are trained to care for sick and injured bats. For assistance with a bat contact Bat Conservation Trust for details of a local carer
Elliot says: Bye for now and keep an eye open for my next eco-blog. He is thinking about what fun he will have on his visits to more Eco Schools in 2012 and wondering what exciting eco projects he will be helping out with.
Elliot the Eco Bat is very excited because this year is a very special year for him and all his batty friends for 2011 is the United Nations’ Year of the Bat.
2011 is the United Nations' Year of the Bat and the Bat Conservation Trust's 20th Anniversary!
To mark this momentous year each month the Trust will be celebrating a different aspect of bat conservation from bats and buildings to biodiversity and monitoring. There will be blogs, competitions, bat weekends and much more.
The Bat Conservation Trust will be giving you lots of ideas on how you can have fun and fundraise for bats, and will be relaunching the Big Bat Map so you can share your bat sightings. Local bat groups will be organising bat walks, talks and surveys so there has never been a better time to go batty.
Elliot has had a lot of fun this year visiting Stafford Schools and helping them with their Eco projects.
When Elliot first arrived at Green Lea he met the school council who were very excited to see him. (It was a non-school uniform day for Comic Relief). The school council introduced Elliot to the rest of the school in assembly the next week.
The school council at Green Lea have already been thinking about eco issues and they have recently introduced compost bins in school. Each class has a compost bin for fruit peelings and there is one in the dinner hall to use at lunch time. Elliot helped the school council empty the bins into the compost bin outside.
Everyone at Green Lea has enjoyed having Elliot at our school.
Elliot the Bat came out of hibernation for a few days during last winter especially to join some of his friends at St John’s Primary School in Stafford. He had some amazing adventures. Here are some of thing things he did.
Elliott says:
Hi everyone, I’m back from my visit to St. John’s Primary School in Stafford. I’ve had an absolutely
fabulous time and there is so much eco-friendliness going on.
On the first day I met the Eco warriors and the teachers, Miss Rees and Mrs Cooper. I had heard that the children of St John’s School had been collecting plastic bottles (I don’t know why) but I was soon to find out that the Eco warriors had made a batty plan to make a greenhouse made out of fizzy pop bottles. The school had been set a target to get 1,500 bottle and can you believe it – they achieved it in 1 MONTH.
Elliot adds:
Here at St John’s the eco warriors have been planting onions and garlic in the vegetable patch and Mrs. Cooper has said they will also plant carrots, parsnips, sprouts and cabbage later in the
season. Yum yum.
St John’s are also having Eco monitors who are patrolling the classrooms to make sure that lights and projectors are off when not in use and paper is being recycled not binned. Each week the best class gets a certificate and lots of praise. The worst class is named and shamed in the hope that they will try harder in future.
The greenhouse frame is now up and I can’t wait to see it when it is completed. I’ve enjoyed my time at St. John’s and meeting all their eco warriors.
Elliot says:
If you ever find a sick or injured bat?
Staffordshire Bat Group has a small team of dedicated volunteers who are trained to care for sick and injured bats. For assistance with a bat contact Bat Conservation Trust for details of a local carer.
Bat Help Line: 0845 1300 228
Local kids from in and around Derrington will have the chance to learn new practical skills and help local wildlife this summer (2011). On Monday 1st August there will be a BAT Box making workshop, as part of a series of three workshops at Derrington Village Hall through the summer holidays. On Saturday 17 September everyone is invited to have a go at making a Bat Box at the Local Food Festival in Derrington. For more details contact Karen Davies at Stafford Borough Council on 01785 619408.
Here is a story written by Rachel Zara Jenkinson from Manorhill First School.
I put up a bird box in our garden but that didn't get used but the feeding table did.
We waited for the birds to come back and found that they were blackbirds.
These are the chicks soon after they hatched.
In this picture you can see that they have not got all there feathers yet.
This picture was taken on the day the birds flew away.
We think there were feathered chicks and when the birds had flown away there was one unhatched egg left in the nest.
Elliot the Eco Bat thought that this is a lovely story, Rachel.
Elliot is looking forward to visiting more schools in 2011 and hopes to see lots more good stuff going on and lots of environmental projects.
Elliot the Bat has been hibernating for some time, but he is due to come out again soon and visit all his young friends. He has been remembering his fun times visiting the local Staffordshire Primary schools.
Some of Elliot’s friends from St Michael’s first school has been showing Elliot all the empty milk cartons they had collected. The filled five
whole bin bags full – which is a lot! They then took them all to be recycled.
Elliot was very pleased to see a piece of land had been cleared to make a new garden. He expects that there will be lots of flowers growing in it in the Spring time of 2011 and he will be awake to see them!
He is wondering what will be growing up the new pergola.
In January 2009 some of Elliot’s friends took part in the "Big Schools Birdwatch".
Later Elliot remembers the fun he had being taken into the woods around the school grounds to check the bird feeders.
Elliot enjoyed being taken around the school by James and Siana. He thinks that the dogwood trees which were planted in November 2007 will now be quite big.
Elliot is very fond of wild flowers and loved having his picture taken amongst the forget-me knots.
He also remembers being taken by some of his friends to look for hedgehogs in the school hedgehog box and helping to fetch water from the stream to fill the school pond.
Elliot enjoyed visiting the classrooms at Cooper Perry Primary School where the children showed him that they were saving energy by making sure that the light monitors switch off the classroom lights when they are not there.
Planting our Orchard
In December the children at Cooper Perry planted 15 apple trees and lots of people came to help. The children said: "We also had help from the Derrington Low Carbon Community Project. We were also part of the BBc’s 'Tree O’clock event' where communities across the country were planting trees of all kinds. Our tree planting even got a mention on the TV".
We want to grow an orchard because:
Every Summer Reception class hatch butterflies and release them onto our school field and gardens. They spend 3 weeks learning about the life cycle of the butterfly and why they are important to our local environment. They also go on mini beast hunts and enjoy looking under rocks and leaves.
The children carried out a pond survey by testing the water and looking at the variety of life living in the pond. They had plans to do lots of other exciting things such as building a bird hide and a feeding station and putting up their own bird boxes which they made themselves in DT.
Elliot enjoyed helping out with battery recycling.
And helping to count the printer cartridges for recycling.
Elliott loved helping Lillie and Annika to water the carrots which they grew in their raised vegetable beds and taking some mini beasts to the Bug Hotel.
Lots of children from Barnfields walk to school, park and stride or walk to school with the Walking Bus. Walking to school makes us healthy and less cars mean less CO2 and less pollution around their school. There is lots of road safety training at school to make sure we walk safely.
On 14th and 15th October 2008 Elliot joined his friends for Child and Truck safety training, says Laura, age 6. They all learned how to behave responsibly around trucks.
Elliot enjoyed his ride in a truck but decided that he would not want to live in one.
A long time ago, people used to think bats were birds without feathers. But now we know that there is no such thing as a featherless bird. We know that bats are MAMMALS, just like people.
Some of the things that tell us bats are mammals:
But bats are very special mammals. They are the only mammals that can fly (without an aeroplane) Flying squirrels are mammals too, but they don't really fly. They jump from high in a tree glide through the air like a kite. Bats flap their wings and fly like a bird.
Bats spend most of the winter hibernating, a state of inactivity characterised by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate.
Bats smell, hear, taste, feel and see just like people do. The term "blind as a bat" isn't really accurate. Bats have perfectly good eyes for seeing in the daylight. The problem is, they do most of their hunting at night!
Instead of relying on their sense of sight for night-time vision, bats make rapid high-pitched squeaks called "ultrasounds". These sounds are too high for most people to hear. If these sounds hit something, they bounce back -- sort of like when you hear your echo in a mountain or a bathroom when you shout. The bat hears the echo and can tell where the object is. This is called "echolocation". Not every species of bat is able to echolocate, but most can.
Elliot is looking forward to visiting more schools in 2011 and hopes to see lots more good stuff going on and lots of environmental projects.
