That tune coming from an old mine in B.C.? It’s probably a bat, singing a love song

Authors of a study say that while bats are well known for using sound to echolocate prey and navigate around objects, silver-haired bats also sing.

The high-pitched tweets, trills and chirps sound like a chorus of birds in the treetops.

The songs, documented in new research, emanate from sites including abandoned mines in British Columbia. The voices belong to silver-haired bats.

Authors of a new study say that while bats are well known for using sound to echolocate prey and navigate around objects, silver-haired bats have now been identified as the second such species in North America that has been documented as singing.

Cori Lausen, director of bat conservation with the Wildlife Conservation Society, is one of the study’s authors published in December in the Wildlife Society Bulletin.

It’s a “neat and rare discovery for North America,” said Lausen, based in Kaslo, B.C.

“The song patterns were relatively consistent with each song phrase consisting of a lead call, followed by a droplet call, and finishing with a series of multiple chirp calls,” says the study.

Most of the recordings were made in southern B.C., including mines in the West Kootenays in the southern Interior, although the research that spanned a decade also took place in several U.S. states.

Although the function of the songs is unknown, the researchers believe it is related to courtship or mating. Alternative functions couldn’t be ruled out, however.