Meet the Bats of Leakin Park

Join bat researcher Dr. Ela-Sita Carpenter for an evening walk to learn about the bats of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.

The evening after Halloween, we’ll head into the park at dusk with someone who knows its bats particularly well.

A red bat foraging above Winan's Meadow on a warm December afternoon. (photo: Dr. Carpenter)

For Dr. Ela-Sita Carpenter, Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is both personal and professional. She grew up spending time in the park. Her father was Baltimore City’s first naturalist, and both of her parents volunteered with Friends of Gwynns Falls Leakin Park.

Carpenter went on to become an urban wildlife biologist and earned her PhD studying bat activity in Baltimore.  And Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park stood out. Most sites she surveyed had three to five bat species; here, she recorded six or seven. On her first evening surveying the park, she detected six species in just 30 minutes.

Dr. Carpenter testing out her passive bat detectors in Leakin Park.

On this evening walk, Carpenter will share what she has learned about the bats of Baltimore and Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park: which species live here, how they navigate and hunt after dark, where they roost, and why this large urban forest provides important habitat for them.

The park’s large trees provide places for bats to roost, while its abundant insects provide food. Its size and relatively undisturbed habitat also help support a diversity of bat species—including the tricolored bat and little brown bat, which face serious threats from white-nose syndrome.

Please dress for the weather and bring a flashlight or headlamp

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