NightWatch, bats and urban wildlife: Lucy Houliston interview

My job is a fantastic mix of science, equipment management, data uploading, community outreach and some comms too. The focus for my role is supporting Project NightWatch and British Bat Survey (BBatS).

Currently, I’m working with NightWatch’s community group leaders on accessible bat walks and surveys. I’ve already done a couple of ‘How to Run a Bat Walk’ training sessions with the group leaders, which was fun!

I love outreach because you get to share what you’re into with a whole new audience. For me, good science communication is as important as doing the science. It can inspire people and drive real change.

Everything from bat surveys to creative writing sessions, and the writing sessions have led to some impactful moments. For instance, as part of one, attendees shared the joys and challenges they’ve experienced trying to navigate outdoor spaces as people of colour. It was powerful stuff.

Some might question how valuable these sorts of things are to conservation, compared to collecting raw data. But stories and the like can forge connections and make nature meaningful in a new way.

And hopefully there’s a of win-win exchange for people that get involved. It's not just us taking. And this fits in with BCT’s aim to create a world where bats and people thrive together.

Two really stand out to me, one in London and the other in Birmingham.

The London one was in a little community garden surrounded by flats, about a 20-minute walk away from London's Waterloo station. We saw so many bats, there were everywhere, right in the middle of the city.

And the other was in Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust's Moseley Bog. In contrast to the London one, we only saw two bats! But it was a lovely, happy atmosphere with a good turnout, all ages from little kids to older people. People said Moseley Bog was a wild but peaceful place at night, and because we were a big group we felt safe there in the dark.

We made time for evening prayer for our Muslim attendees, following a conversation with Nazia Sultana (founder of co-hosts Sustainably Muslim). It was a simple thing you probably don't think about if you're not Muslim yourself. By having discussions with our collaborators and co-designers, we're starting to make our events more accessible and meaningful for more people.

I learned that to move in the right direction, you've got to risk making mistakes.

And that you must be willing to be innovative and creative about engaging people. For example, BCT wants to engage more people from marginalised backgrounds, specifically people of colour. But I am not a person of colour and so I’m not representing the people that we're talking to. Whilst that’s limited some of what I can personally do in some ways, it inspired me to connect with other organisations and people and to learn from them, such as co-hosting events with Wanderers of Colour and Sustainably Muslim.

There are loads of talented, passionate young people doing vital, heartfelt work on these crises and we should all be listening to them. I do feel like there's real movement in this space, younger people see what's happening and think: surely someone's got to do something about this. There's this feeling of responsibility, especially given how every single 'environmentally aware' young person seems to be put on a pedestal these days. There's no doubt that that takes its toll.

However, I don't know what the level of interest is among the younger generation more broadly. When and where I grew up, being into nature was seen as a peculiarity.