Alsager resident, Jane Smith, knows a thing or two about bats.

In fact Jane, the deputy leader of the Animal Welfare Party has been named the 'Batty Laureate' for 2022 by the Bat Conservation Trust.

Jane, was awarded the prestigious title for a piece she wrote about bats in Alsager – 'How to Say Thank You to Bats'.

Jane Smith

"The trees were the reason we chose this place. Tall, proud silver birches; a bright green laurel, home to multiple blackbird families; a pine standing to attention as if listening to the clouds; " writes Jane in 'How to Say Thank You to Bats.

The essay was published by the Bat Conservation Trust (the national charity for bats) last month. Jane's poem can be read here: https://cdn.bats.org.uk/uploads/news/How-to-Say-Thank-You-to-Bats.pdf?v=1671709753

Jane is on a mission to "spread some love for bats" which she thinks are often misunderstood by humans.

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And this piece of work isn't the only time Jane, an accomplished writer, has written about the nocturnal creatures.

Jane, who also sits on Alsager Town Council as a councillor, has had various bat pieces published by XR Writers and others in the past.

Her bats essay 'Frequencies at Dusk', about a bat monitoring evening with Staffordshire Bat Group, was published last year by XR Writers who have also published pieces by Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh.

"I love writing about them as they're a real challenge to get to know," says Jane.

"Living with bats gives a window, or perhaps more correctly a shadow box, of fleeting but unforgettable glimpses into the world of these strangely unknowable creatures that are at once widespread and mysterious."

Jane says she loves the subject because "bats have a long and distinguished history of being something of a preoccupation for writers, from Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' to Nagel's ground-breaking 'What is it like to be a Bat?' (1974)".

"I think this is because they're hard to know, difficult even to see and impossible to hear without specialist equipment, yet they live among us, in cities and in the country.

"They're quite unknowable and there are many things about bats that still baffle scientists. They live in complex societies that we're only just beginning to understand.

"All of this makes them a wonderful subject for the imagination, and in my view their unknowability really lends itself to a stance of humility – they're wondrous, and we still don't know how they do a lot of things.

*If readers are interested in finding out more about bats, Jane recommends they look at local groups such as Staffordshire Bat Group or Cheshire Bat Group as well as the Bat Conservation Trust.