Bat

How to recognise it

Seen at dusk hunting over the garden. In Portugal, pipistrelles are the common garden species.

Mistaken for

Feared and unwelcome from superstition. They neither harm people nor damage plants, and they are legally protected.

What it eats

Grape berry moth, Codling moth, Tomato leafminer, Mediterranean fruit fly, Olive fly

How to attract it

A bat box high on a warm wall, night-scented flowers to draw moths, a water source, and no floodlighting over the garden.

Plants that help

Jasmine, Star jasmine, Lavender

Lifecycle

One pup a year, so populations recover slowly - which is why protecting roosts matters.

Months: April, May, June, July, August, September, October

The thing people get wrong

A single pipistrelle eats up to 3,000 insects a night, most of them the moths whose caterpillars bore into your fruit. For grapes, apples and olives a bat box is genuinely one of the most cost-effective pest measures available - and it works while you are asleep.