Trail Guides Audio Guide Transcript Detailed guided walk information for each trail to accompany your bat walk around each site (Please refer to main information booklet for maps and bat detector use information) Avon Valley Woodlands Bat Audio Trail Site Introduction and travel information Circular walk of about ¾ of a mile (1.2 km) 1 hour walk with 6 luminescent way marker trail points. Nearest buses 44 (Hanham, Memorial Road) and 45 (St Georges) By car, follow the brown signs for Avon Valley woodlands from the A431 in Hanham. It is best to park at Conham River car park (BS15 3AW) which also has toilet facilities. During the summer the car park is usually locked around 10.00 pm at night but is open until 11:30 pm, Thursday – Saturday to tie in with the evening opening hours of Beeses tea rooms. The trail is relatively flat, with a couple of inclines and declines along the route. The route passes over a mixture of path surfaces including grass, tarmac and gravel. There are a number of seats along the trail. Wheel chair users may find the trail along the river the most accessible section to follow between points 6 and 4 as the path is flat, wide and hard surfaced. Trail point 1 can be found at the entrance to the Avon Valley Woodlands, which is accessed through a small wooden gate from the car park next to a black signpost and information panel. Trail point one - Entrance From this point the trail follows a gravel footpath up into Conham River Park. There is a picnic area on your right and a long low building on the left which is home to the East Bristol Rifle and Pistol Club. The gladed area merges into coppiced woodland plantations as you reach the grassland. These woodlands contain native trees including hazel, field maple hawthorn and ash. The reserve is owned and managed by South Gloucestershire Council for the enjoyment of local people. Conham River Park forms part of the Avon Valley Woodlands, which was declared a Local Nature Reserve in 2005 in recognition of the rich biodiversity and ecology of the area. You may be surprised to know that you are now standing at the former entrance to Conham Sewage works! In 1937 a sewage plant was built here which served the southern part of Kingswood until 1968, when the trunk sewer was extended to Avonmouth. Later it became a refuse tip, which once full, was landscaped with trees that now provide food, shelter and habitat for a wide variety of birds and small mammals. This site includes a broad range of grassland, woodland, scrub and riverside habitats, so as a result a variety of bats and other wildlife are found here. On previous walks bats identified here have included Noctules, Common Pipestrelles, Soprano Pipestrelles and Daubenton’s bats. Each species has slightly different habitat preferences, so at the different markers it will be explained which bat you are most likely to hear and why. To get to marker 2, walk up the gravel path, through a small copse and continue to the edge of an area of open grassland. The distance to the next trail point is 120 metres. 2 Trail point two – Parkland You should be standing in an open grassy area with a number of trees dotted around. The grass is relatively flat, but watch out for small holes dug by rabbits that populate the area. During the summer, when the grass is tall the field is full of grasshoppers, butterflies and moths. The small coppices around the grassland are home to a wide variety of bird life including green woodpeckers, which can sometimes be seen searching the grassland for ants. In the evenings, tawny owls may also be heard in this locality, especially in the autumn when they re establish their territory. Open space like this can be a good place to hear our largest bat, the Noctule. This species has a deep voice that can best be heard around 20 – 25 kHz on a bat detector. Their call is only just outside the range of our own hearing which may be just as well as it is a very loud and up to four times the legal decibel limit for a night club! Having a loud call is necessary as Noctule bats fly out in the open and need to ‘see’ the larger landscape. Because they are large bats and strong flyers, with a wing span as much as 40 centimetres, Noctules don’t have much to fear from predators like owls and sparrow hawks. They can emerge safely before it gets dark and are often seen flying before dusk, frequently at tree top height and along a woodland edge. Their echo location is slower paced than smaller bats and they produce a two tone ‘chip-chop, chip-chop’ sound. They eat moths and other large insects, like flying beetles. The grassland area was once the grounds to Conham Hall, a large house that played an important role with the growth of the non-conformist movement in the seventeenth century. Religious persecution forced the early Baptists to hold secret meetings in Hanham woods and in 1680-85, when all the Bristol chapels were closed. There is little evidence of the house now, all that remains are some of the specimen trees from the garden, including a tall Monkey Puzzle tree, which stood as one of a pair at the entrance to the Hall. To get to trail point 3, bear right over the grassland following the waymarking posts as you go. If you want to keep on surfaced paths you may prefer to turn left onto Ferry Lane and go straight to trail point 3 Distance to the next trail point is 250 metres. Trail point three – Ferry Lane You should now be standing in a narrow lane that was once the entrance way to the grand Conham Hall. Some of the walls along this lane have been capped with large black triangular stones. These ‘Toblerone’ shaped caps are made from brass slag, a waste product from the brass works at Warmley and other local brass mills along the Avon and Chew rivers. The molten slag was moulded into a variety of shapes to be used in buildings and can be seen in many 18th century properties and walls in the area including the famous ‘Black Castle’ at the Brislington end of the Spine Road, which is unique as it is constructed almost entirely of slag blocks. 3 The lane here runs through a tunnel of trees and shrubs, which is popular with many bats particularly Common Pipistrelles. The Common Pipistrelle is our most frequently seen bat, particularly in gardens. They weigh 5-6 grams and have a wingspan of around 215mm. Pipistrelles fly up and down a regular path or beat, ‘hoovering’ up insects. Midges are their main food source and they can eat up to 3,000 in a single night! Their call and wing beat is faster than the Noctule and the pace about as fast as you can comfortably drum two fingers on your arm. You can hear Pipistrelles best at around 45 kHz on the bat detector and the call is described as being ‘wet and slappy’! Walk down Ferry Lane towards the river Avon. At the bottom, where it levels off, you join the towpath. There is a timber shelter and seat. The river Avon is directly in front of you. Take care because there are no barriers along the towpath. The river through here marks a natural boundary between South Gloucestershire and Bristol. The tow path is part of the River Avon Trail, which follows the river for 23 miles from Pulteney Bridge in Bath to Pill, N. Somerset, near the mouth of the Avon. http://www.riveravontrail.org.uk The distance to the next trail marker is 80 metres. Trail point four – Ferry crossing You should be standing by the River Avon which flows down towards Bristol. The river is still tidal here and remains so up to the Hanham Mills lock, at the eastern end of the Local Nature Reserve. The wooden shelter was made by young people from Hanham Youth Club and provides a seating area for people wishing to catch the ferry across to Beese's Tea Gardens which first opened in 1846! The tow path was once used by the horses that pulled wooden barges laden with quarried stone and coal to Bristol and Bath. This can be a good spot for watching herons and kingfishers during day time. Rivers like the Avon are used by many bats for foraging as they attract so many insects. Two species of bats, Daubenton’s and Soprano Pipistrelles are strongly associated with lakes and rivers. The first of these, the Daubenton’s, is a medium sized bat with a pale underside, which specialises in catching midges and insects from on, and just above the water surface using its especially large hairy feet! The Daubenton bat cruises around whilst echo locating at a very fast rate, making a dry sounding call which is likened to a Geiger counter or a rustling bag of crisps. Daubenton’s bats can be best heard at about 45 kHz. The second bat species often found around water is the Soprano Pipistrelle, which is a close cousin of the Common Pipistrelle. Unlike the Daubenton’s bat, it swoops up and down above the water, catching higher flying insects. It has a ‘wet and slappy’ call like the Common Pipistrelle. The Soprano Pipistrelle is heard best at around 55 kHz on a bat detector.