Minimise the negative impacts of artificial lighting on nocturnal animals by choosing Solareye80 Bat Hat.
Here at Solareye, we’re passionate about helping businesses and local authorities create safe, comfortable, and enjoyable outdoor spaces. However, this needn’t be at the expense of wildlife.
When we learnt that many nocturnal animals, and in particular bats, are negatively impacted by artificial lighting at night, we went about designing an ecologically friendly solar ground light, ideal for conservation sensitive areas and dark sky reserves. And thus Solareye80 Bat Hat was born.
Solareye Bat Hat is designed to reduce upward light spillage by 98% while maintaining the same profile and night time visibility for cyclists and pedestrians as the original Solareye80 ground light. By decreasing upwards light spillage, light trespass is reduced and the negative affects of light pollution on bats and other nocturnal animals is minimised.
Solareye80 Bat Hat benefits from the same key features which make the original Solareye80 so popular, including:
The Solareye Bat Hat maintains the same profile as the Solareye80 but reduces upward light spillage by 98% per cent. This video demonstrates the profiles.
Using a core drill, each cut is quick and simple. Fixing is by way of a two component all weather epoxy adhesive. For more details on how to install Solareye80 Bat Hat solar ground lights, check out our installation video below.
The below video looks at the many benefits of solar ground lighting to cycle networks.
We’ve learnt a lot about bats during the development of Solareye80 Bat Hat – here are some interesting facts that we would like to share with you.
In addition to causing disturbance to bats in the roost, artificial lighting can also affect the feeding behaviour of bats. In most bat species there is an evening period of activity followed by another at dawn. These two flights correlate with the peak flight times of nocturnal insect prey. Insects are attracted to light particularly if it is a single light source in a dark area.
Artificial lighting can increase chances of predation. It is believed that Plecotus & Myotis species shun bright light as a predator avoidance strategy. Many avian hunters will hunt bats which may be one reason why bats avoid flying during the day.
Any upwards light spillage should be minimal to avoid light pollution. Light can be restricted to selected areas by fitting hoods which direct the light below the horizontal plane, preferably at an angle less than 70 degrees.
Our ‘Bat Hat’ reduces the upwards light spillage of our omni directional LED by around 98% while remaining the same in profile. This means that you will still be able to see it, but it won’t bother the bats and insects as they fly overhead.
The Bat Conservation Trust have kindly agreed to help us evaluate Solareye80 Bat Hat in real situations with surveys showing there has been no disruption to the bats by having these units installed near their colonies. We thank them for giving up their time to advise us with the development and testing and look forward to continually develop our conservation range.
