Tell us about your bat sightings!

One of the simplest ways in which you can help London's bats is to let us know about your sightings of bats. We're especially looking for sightings that indicate the presence of a roost.


Your information will help us

  • Identify the location of roosts and important sites
  • Prove presence of bats when important sites are threatened
  • Monitor populations

Nathusius' Pipistrelle - London


Our database holds over 22,000 records but like many recording scheme databases, a few recorders supply most of the records.  For our database, seven recorders have contributed 64% of the records. Yet we are grateful for every single record so please consider sending your records in.  Below are some guidelines on what we would like to receive.


What?  Species (essential but could be bat, suspected Daubenton’s).

Where?  Where in London did you see that bat. A location ideally accompanied with a six figure grid reference (eg TQ123456) but we will accept more or less precision. A useful website for getting grid references is provided by the Bedfordshire Natural History Society

When?  Date (essential but could be incomplete eg May 2012)

Details?  Very useful but not essential. How many bats did you see (eg 5 feeding, 23 passes). How the bats were behaving (e.g. in flight, on a wall, whether the bat was flying high above trees, or across the surface of a lake). Do you see them every year? Did you see them leaving a tree or a building?


Ideally your records would be in electronic format preferably as a spreadsheet with the above information as different fields but we will accept other formats and also paper records. There is a template spreadsheet that can be downloaded here in either Excel or OpenDocument formats.

Microsoft Excel Records Spreadsheet - download

OpenDocument Records Spreadsheet - download


Please send information about your bat sighting to the email address below

email contact records

If wish to contact us to for a Records Search please see our Records Search page


(All data held and or made available will be subject to the Data Protection Act)