In the Evangelical Church in Necpaly, there is one of the functional summer colonies of bats in Turiec.
And there are several of them here – in the church tower during the summer, the population of the great bat (Myotis myotis) raises offspring in the summer colony, in the attic of the church nave the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros), the long-eared bat (Myotis emarginatus) and also several gray bats (Plecotus austriacus).
The most numerous is the great bat, which forms a colony with several hundred individuals.
Summer colonies of bats are made up of females and their young, which take advantage of warm attic spaces and safety from predators. They are insectivores, and since insects have an outer skeleton made up of chitin, there is a large proportion of these indigestible parts in their droppings. Droppings accumulate under the colony throughout the summer, when bats are active, because their metabolism is fast and raising young is also very energy-intensive.
Yesterday, the employees of the NPVF Administration cleaned more than 180 kg of droppings from the highest places of the church tower, from the space above the bells, where it had been accumulating for 2 years since the last cleaning. We filled the guano into bags, lowered it from the tower with the help of ropes and carried it out of the church.
Cleaning is carried out outside the breeding season of bats, the ideal time is at the end of autumn, when the bats are already out of the attic and there is no disturbance during cleaning. Bat droppings – guano – are very rich in nitrogen and are used as fertilizer.
As a thank you for tolerating these small tenants, the parish received several bags for its needs.
