more blogtober than blogmas

Last night was another great session with Wild Life Drawing, this time about bats, with the star of the show (livestream) being Stewart, the rescued pipistrelle bat. I have been fortunate that I’ve always lived in places where bats are a fairly common sight, albeit not in great numbers, and I’m often joined by one flitting in front of me when I take the dog on a dusk walk in the summer. I’ve also seen them flying around the back garden – we have a couple of tiny ponds, and I think they like the mozzies which emerge, having survived the attention of the frogs, water boatmen, and predatory larvae that live in the depths.

Stewart was a little camera shy yesterday but we still managed to see him crawling around his little box where his batmum keeps him safe. He was found with a torn wing which was not dealt with correctly by the local vet, so he now can’t fly. The options for a flightless bat are rather stark as you can imagine, so Stewart is now an ambassador for his clan. Caring for a wild bat is a tremendous commitment, so the wonderful thing about Wild Life Drawing is that 50% of the proceeds go to the work involved with whatever subject we are drawing. As someone who struggles with choosing how and to whom I should give financial support, I really appreciate having this decision made for me in an easy and enjoyable way which also builds my creative practice.

I mainly drew from from the reference images but I find it much easier to concentrate on photos when a) I know they are the correct species (Ecosia has a liberal interpretation of any animal or plant unless you use the Latin name!) and b) I don’t have to choose.

If you detect a sense of dithering about decision-making, dear reader, you are not wrong…

I used my sketchbook for this session, and had done some sketches of long-eared bats from the reference photos in my grey pens the previous evening. I used brown ink with my Pilot parallel pen, and a Blackwing matte pencil for the ones I did during the session, and it was good to properly study them. They have faces which are difficult to draw in a way which isn’t cartoon-y, as the features are sort of familiar but not at all where you think they should be, and don’t have much by way of definition. They are so furry and look really soft, like the velvet fur of a mole.

So, how can we help our little batty friends? Insects. Insects insects insects. The massive drop in the number of invertebrates in the environment has had a huge impact on our bats, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, so gardening for wildlife is absolutely essential. It is also so easy and achievable, and anything anywhere is a help. We have a wildflower verge outside our boundary fence which is only 1m deep and about 8m wide yet it has been home to so many grasshoppers, spiders, snails, slugs, aphids, micromoths and caterpillars. I have left the seedheads and vegetation as it is an important wintering spot for lots and lots of species; I’ll tidy it up when the weather warms in March/April. Our neighbour has a scalped piece of scrappy grass which I doubt sustains anything at all.

Planting night-scented flowers can attract moths on which the bats feed, so next year I am going to buy some Nicotiana plugs, as the aforementioned slugs made short work of the seedlings I sowed this past spring. Evening primrose grows prolifically, and catnip is great too. Speaking of cats, they of course are part of the problem: small furry things flitting around are certainly within the reach of our feline friends. My cat lives indoors – again, there are so many ways to make this work, and it’s a better life for our precious kitties AND the wildlife.

I’ve already booked on a few of next year’s sessions with Wild Life Drawing – and they do gift vouchers if you need a last minute present. No drawing skills are necessary!