Clockwise from
top left: Sam
inspects a bat
that had become
stuck to flypaper;
gently cleaning
a newly arrived
brown long-eared
bat; feeding Nico,
a noctule bat that
has lived with
Sam for three
years; a Leisler’s
bat tucks into a
tasty mealwormouth of Exmoor, I turn off a busy A road and
stop by the house I’ve heard called the ‘Batty
Ford Clinic’. From outside it looks like any other
in the village. Samantha Pickering opens the front door
holding her three-week-old daughter – adorable in a
bat-themed Babygro – and ushers me into the living room
while fending off a friendly Rhodesian ridgeback. I spot
a tub of mealworms, a pipette and medical inspection
gloves. In one corner is a cot full of bat toys, in another
an incubator. “For my other babies,” laughs Sam.
“Right now I have three pipistrelles in the incubator,”
she says. “One is five weeks old, the others around four
weeks. Baby ‘pips’ need feeding every couple of hours,
so bat rescuers set an alarm for the night-time feeds,
though this year my own baby does it for me!”
Back in July, when Sam first told me that she had
just given birth, I suggested postponing my visit, but
she would have none of it. “Don’t be silly,” she insisted.
Sam has her hands full and likes it that way. As well as
alternately feeding hungry bats and her own infant day
and night, she has four teenagers to think of. In the back
garden there are numerous older bats of varying species
and ages in a purpose-built shelter and flight cage –
one of the country’s largest bat-rescue facilities. And
the household also includes a husband, two cats, two
rabbits, two guinea pigs, five chinchillas, a tame jackdaw(it comes and goes as it pleases), that impressive species
of Australian lizard, the bearded dragon, and an African
pygmy hedgehog.
“They are mainly rescue animals,” says Sam, whose
fascination for bats began when she was six. “People hear
that I love bats and as word spreads bring all kinds of other
creatures that need rehoming.” Most of the bats in Sam’s
expert care come straight from the wild, but last October
she was asked if she would take 40 Egyptian fruit bats from
a collection no longer able to keep them. “Sadly, I didn’t
have room – fruit bats need lots of space. But after a flurry
of emails among batworkers, we found a zoo that did.”BATTY ABOUT BATS
Sam has ministered to most of Britain’s 18 species – South-
west England is a bat hotspot – since opening her sanctuary
in 2013, a year after training as a voluntary bat carer with the
Devon Bat Group. June and July, when bats give birth, is
her busiest time. Autumn is also hectic, as many youngsters
on the wing for the first time get into trouble, either crash-
landing or misjudging aerial manoeuvres.S
NATURE