King Charles' winged residents in Scotland that the late Queen used to 'catch in a net'
King Charles has a life-long passion for numerous animals including dogs and horses. He grew up with his mother's beloved corgis and is an accomplished equestrian – a skill he demonstrated back in 2023 when he chose to ride on horseback in his first Trooping the Colour parade as monarch and during his polo playing career.
Domestic creatures aside, His Majesty also appears to have grown quite fond of several wild creatures lurking on his sprawling Scottish estate, Balmoral. He's developed an "infatuation" with the endangered red squirrel and is currently thought to be sharing his home with the soprano pipistrelle bat – Scotland's most common bat. You could say he's a modern-day Snow White!
Back in July, The Times reported that Charles' plans to convert a historic Balmoral steading into holiday homes had been delayed after bat roosts were discovered on the site. NatureScot, the Scottish government nature agency must now assess whether Charles can proceed with his conversion plans.
The protected bats are also thought to be thriving inside Balmoral Castle's rafters… and have been for decades!
According to the Bat Conservation Trust, soprano pipistrelle bats tend to create roosts inside buildings, both old and new. A section on their website reads: "Summer roosts of both common and soprano pipistrelles are usually found in crevices around the outside of often newer buildings, such as behind hanging tiles, soffit and barge or eaves boarding, between roofing felt and roof tiles or in cavity walls
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"This species also roosts in tree holes and crevices, and also in bat boxes. Summer roosts of soprano pipistrelle support colonies of an average size of 200 bats, but they can be even larger with numbers reaching several hundred to over a thousand bats."
During her lifetime, the late Queen Elizabeth II reportedly used to perform a rather peculiar ritual each summer in a bid to remove the bats from her Scottish residence.
According to journalist and author Tina Brown, King Charles' mother would enlist the help of her staff to capture and release the winged creatures using an unexpected piece of equipment – butterfly nets!
In her book, The Palace Papers, Tina writes: "The Queen's happy place has always been Balmoral… The Queen has sometimes been sighted wielding a butterfly net trying to catch the bats that lurk in the upper reaches of the castle."
Meanwhile, royal expert Adam Helliker told The Sun in 2019: "When I checked last summer, the bats were still there. They can't get rid of them."
Reflecting on the late Queen's bat catching skills, he went on to say: "She used to do the net wielding, but she doesn't do it now… It's more of a show put on for her by staff. That's just one of the things they do at Balmoral to stop them getting bored stiff."
He added: "Although the footsmen would love it if they weren't there, I think you could say after horses and corgis, bats are her much lesser known third favourite."
