I think we must be either walking a different route, or going at a different time, however this year we are definitely seeing a lot more bats in the morning. And ones of very different sizes.
The ones that fly over the house are quite a lot bigger than the ones we see in the fields – which, of course, led to a Google search to find out more about bats of Extremadura.
Interestingly, there are 23 different types of bat in Extremadura, and I think we must definitely see couple of different types. The ones in the country are a lot smaller and we see them going in and out of the oak trees, so it would appear they must nest in hollows inside the tree trunks. The ones we see in the village, I think must live in buildings.
Ian has noticed that the wings appear different on some of the ones we see flying over the house – so there’s probably two different types. I found this bat identyfier on the national history museum website – so I’ll be looking to see if I can find one in Spain, so we can identify which bats we see.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/nhmwww/take-part/identify-nature/bats-in-flight-id-guide.pdf