NATURA SLOVENIAE 22(2): 85-87 Prejeto / Received: 2. 10. 2020 
FIELD NOTE Sprejeto / Accepted: 7. 12. 2020 
 
 
Biotehniška fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani in Nacionalni inštitut za biologijo, Ljubljana, 2020 
Observations made at three 
church bat (Chiroptera) roosts 
in central Slovenia 
 
Opažanja s treh cerkvenih zatočišč 
netopirjev (Chiroptera) v osrednji 
Sloveniji 
 
Jan GOJZNIKAR, Migojnice 90, SI-3302 Griže;  
E-mail: jan.gojznikar.pb@gmail.com 
Tim ZAVERŠEK, Ulica Alme Karlinove 31, SI-3000 
Celje; E-mail: tim.zaversek@gmail.com 
Anja BOLČINA, Cesta na Svetino 19, SI-3270 
Laško; E-mail: bolcina.anja@gmail.com 
 
Church buildings in Slovenia have long been known 
as suitable nursery roosts for several bat 
(Chiroptera) species (Presetnik et al. 2009), which 
require a warm environment to raise their young 
during the summer. Knowing which churches are 
utilized by bats as roosts is therefore highly 
important for bat conservation. During late spring 
and early summer of 2020, we visited three church 
roosts of lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus 
hipposideros) in the Savinjska region, Central 
Slovenia. These churches were St. Neža at Liboje, 
St. Magdalena on Hom hill (Matke) and Sts. Mohor 
and Fortunat on Šmohor hill (Tab. 1), which had 
been inspected in the past (Hercog 2013, own data) 
and are known to host larger roosts of the species. 
We decided to inspect these churches to record 
their present status and to assess the current size 
of their respective reproductive colonies. 
 
Bats were counted when exiting the roost in the 
evening. Each roost was inspected twice – initially, 
a preliminary evening visit was made to assess flight 
patterns and emergence openings, and later a 
thorough count of emerging bats was conducted. 
The count began 5-10 minutes before sunset with 
bats being counted until 15 minutes after the last 
confirmed emergence from the roost.  
R. hipposideros were identified using a heterodyne 
ultrasound detector (D200, Petersson Elektronik) at 
110 kHz, while additional detectors were used to 
search for other possible bat species. Since female 
R. hipposideros near our survey area were noted to 
give birth from mid-June onwards (Hercog 2013), 
we assumed all emerging individuals of the species 
were adults. On 25. 6. 2020 (Tab. 1) we also 
deployed hand nets at St. Magdalena Church in 
order to determine one of the species present there, 
using determination key in Dietz & Kiefer (2016).  
 
Apart from confirming R. hipposideros presence 
during all our surveys (Tab. 1), we recorded two 
other bat species - the greater horseshoe bat  
(R. ferrumequinum) and the whiskered bat (Myotis 
mystacinus). We also noted individual bats which 
we were unable to distinguish to species or even 
family level, including an individual of a large bat 
species at Sts. Mohor and Fortunat (Tab. 1). Almost 
all bats used small windows and other apparent 
holes for their emergence, except for unidentified 
Vespertilionidae individuals at St. Neža, which 
emerged from slits between stone roof tiles of the 
bell tower. 
 
To our knowledge, St. Neža Church had only been 
surveyed once in the past, when the first author of 
this contribution inspected the roost on 24. 8. 2017, 
observing 123 R. hipposideros of unknown sex and 
age, 28 adults, 38 juveniles, 2 adult females and 
one carcass. These numbers, combined with our 
recent findings of 217 adults, make this church a 
nursery roost with a very large maternity colony of 
the species in Slovenia (Petrinjak 2009, Presetnik 
2018). St. Magdalena on Hom hosts an even more 
numerous maternity colony - we recorded over a 
hundred more adult individuals of the species than 
Hercog (2013) in the season of 2011 (max. 245 
compared to our 346). According to Presetnik 
(2018), our findings suggest that the church hosts 
among the largest, if not the largest currently 
known maternity colony of R. hipposideros in the 
country. The number of adult individuals of the 
species at Sts. Mohor and Fortunat is also slightly 
higher than the numbers found by Hercog (2013) 
(max. 59 adults compared to our 76). It is to be 
noted, however, that the emergence count 
conditions at the latter were much worse than at the 
other two churches, with emergence openings 
located much higher and heavy winds impairing our 
ability to detect bats. These conditions have 
contributed to the high number of unidentified 
individuals (Tab. 1). Although some, if not most, 
were probably R. hipposideros, we cannot exclude 
the possibility that some of them belonged to other 
bat species. Therefore, the interior of the Church of 
Sts. Mohor and Fortunat needs to be reinspected in 
the near future, in order to both assess the true 
number of R. hipposideros individuals present and 
to inspect for other bat species possibly present at 
the roost.  
 
86 Jan GOJZNIKAR et al.: Observations made at three church bat (Chiroptera) roosts in central Slovenia / FIELD NOTE 
NATURA SLOVENIAE 22(2): 85-87 
We also recorded some other interesting bat 
species. We have reconfirmed the presence of  
R. ferrumequinum at St. Magdalena, whereas we 
failed to register any serotine bats (Eptesicus 
serotinus) which were also recorded at the church 
previously (Hercog 2013). However, by far the most 
intriguing is our find of a nursery roost of  
M. mystacinus, which has not been observed at  
St. Magdalena in the past. Known nursery roosts of 
M. mystacinus in Slovenia are very rare, and so far, 
only two other church roosts were noted for this 
species, out of which one had already been 
destroyed (Likozar 2013). This finding, together 
with the remarkable number of detected  
R. hipposideros individuals during our survey, 
makes the church of St. Magdalena a roost of 
national importance.  
Our results highlight that the Churches of St. Neža, 
Sts. Mohor and Fortunat, and especially  
St. Magdalena, are bat roosts of high conservational 
importance. None of these church nurseries are 
included in any nature conservation networks, such 
as Natura 2000 (Ur. l. RS 2004a) or Ecologically 
important areas (Ur. l. RS 2004b). We suggest that 
the churches be included in these areas, with 
conservation activities focusing especially on 
measures which promote peaceful coexistence of 
bats and church administrators (for examples see 
Kotnik et al. 2015). It might also be prudent to 
monitor the state of these important nurseries in the 
future. 
 
 
 
Table 1. Results of bat emergence counts for three selected church bat roosts. Structures, used by individuals to emerge 
from the roost, are also given. AD – adult; emergence openings: BTO – bell tower openings, ATO – attic openings,  
BTR – slits in bell tower roof tiles. 
Tabela 1. Rezultati štetja izletavanja za tri izbrane cerkve. Navedene so tudi izhodne strukture, ki so jih uporabljali 
netopirji. AD – odrasla žival; izhodne odprtine: BTO – odprtine/line na zvoniku, ATO – odprtine/line na podstrešju,  
BTR – reže med strešniki zvonika. 
Site [lat. (°N), long. 
(°E), m a.s.l.] 
Date Notes Taxa  
[No. of individuals] 
Emergence 
openings 
Church of St. Neža, Liboje  
[46.208026, 15.190633, 
367] 
27. 5. 2020 / R. hipposideros [132] BTO, ATO 
Vespertilionidae [2] BTR 
29. 5. 2020 / R. hipposideros [217] BTO, ATO 
Vespertilionidae [1] BTR 
Church of St. Magdalena, 
Matke  
[46.218996, 15.125510, 
602] 
23. 6. 2020 / R. hipposideros [336] BTO, ATO 
R. ferrumequinum [1]  ATO 
Vespertilionidae [25] ATO 
Chiroptera [10] ATO 
25. 6. 2020 terminated  
90 min. after 
sunset – heavy 
rain 
R. hipposideros [346] BTO, ATO 
R. ferrumequinum [1]  ATO 
M. mystacinus [30 AD,  
2 AD ♀,  2 AD ♀ – parous] 
ATO 
Church of Sts. Mohor and 
Fortunat, Šmohor  
[46.181568, 15.180067, 
786] 
27. 6. 2020 very windy 
conditions 
R. hipposideros [76] BTO 
Chiroptera [49] BTO 
Chiroptera (large species) [1] BTO 
1. 7. 2020 terminated  
60 min. after 
sunset – heavy 
winds and 
lightning 
R. hipposideros [59] BTO 
Chiroptera [47] BTO 
 
  
Jan GOJZNIKAR et al.: Observations made at three church bat (Chiroptera) roosts in central Slovenia / FIELD NOTE 87 
NATURA SLOVENIAE 22(2): 85-87 
Acknowledgements 
 
We wish to thank our colleagues Pia Golob, Rok Lobnik, Liza 
Trebše and Nika Zaveršek who participated in the field 
work. We are grateful also to Primož Presetnik who 
provided us with some information on useful literature. We 
wish to thank Mr. Jože Planinc, the parish priest of Župnija 
Griže, who kindly allowed us to visit the Church of St. Neža. 
We are also thankful also to an anonymous reviewer whose 
insight greatly improved this manuscript.  
 
 
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