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For small songbirds migrating is hazardous, warblers and chiff chaffs and the like, run the risk of getting eaten by other birds as they undertake their exhausting flight. So, many choose to fly at night, a very sensible decision, and until now, it has been assumed that they fly safely under the cover of darkness.
If you are a small songbird winging your way through the dark skies of Europe at night then the jaws of the Greater Noctule Bat as it closes in on you mid flight, might come as a bit of a shock. In fact the whole idea of a Bat predating migrant birds has come as a bit of shock to scientists.
Up until recently we had no idea that there was a carnivorous Bat in Europe, we have known the Greater Noctule Bat as an insectivore, it would certainly have helped itself to some migrant moths, but migrant songbirds? It has taken some serious work to convince scientists that they too are being stalked by a predator in the night. But it turns out that there is really no escape from echo location.
It all sounds a bit gruesome, but one crumb of relief for our migrating birds is that the Greater Noctule is rare, so their chance of bumping into one is pretty small. Thanks to Ana Popa-Lisseanu of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.
Further Reading:
You can read Popa-Lisseanu et al's paper on the carnivorous Bat here.