Northumberland vicar and bat expert help Alexandra to recover then fly free

Rev Rob Kelsey recently found the bat lying on the floor inside the church on a Saturday morning and learned that it had been there from at least the previous Thursday.

Following the online advice of the Bat Conservation Trust, he put the bat inside a box with some water in a shallow container.

He then made a few phone calls and eventually got to speak with Mandy Tomas, a regional bat expert. She advised him to leave the box out at dusk on a high vertical surface in the hope that the bat would fly away, but it was still there on the Sunday morning.

Mandy met Rob after the service in church and identified the bat as a soprano pipistrelle. They agreed to call the bat Alexandra – the same name as the baby who had just been baptised during the service.

During the following week, Mandy and her partner Neil took care of Alexandra. On the Wednesday, Mandy emailed Rev Kelsey to say: ‘Alexandra is not eating as much as she should, so she has been talked to and grumbled at. She can fly very well indeed though.’

The next Saturday, Mandy and Neil returned with Alexandra to Norham Church as the light was beginning to fade. They were joined by Ronnie Hek, a local wildlife photographer. Mandy showed Rev Kelsey how to hold Alexandra on a special heated mat until she was ready to fly.

Nothing much happened for about 10 minutes and then, all of a sudden, Alexandra flew off.