National Bat Monitoring Programme is now squeaking (not tweeting)

The National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) is the longest running (since 1996), purpose-built, multi-species monitoring programme for mammals in the UK. That's a bit of a mouthful but it provides exceptional information on how bats are faring in the UK, and it's all done by volunteers. Citizen Scientists across the UK have spent over 42,000 evenings carrying out NBMP surveys.

NBMP is now on Twitter, squeaking (bats don't tweet!) about the surveys that volunteers can get involved with during the summer months to collect essential data on the UK's bats.

The data collected allows us to track changes in bat species populations and this would not be possible without the amazing contribution from NBMP volunteers. In December 2014 a scientific paper using the data from NBMP was published (available here). This showed a generally positive picture at the UK scale for some of our more widespread bat species.

With the weather starting to warm up across the UK, it's the time to start thinking about getting involved and help undertake a survey! We are keen to enlist even more volunteers across the UK, particularly in under-recorded areas, as this will help us report on how bats are faring at the country and regional levels.

There are many surveys to choose from, including the Sunset/Sunrise Survey, which is perfect for beginners; the Roost Count, if you know of a bat roost you can visit (particularly easy if you have bats on your property!), and the Field Survey or Waterway Survey for those of you with some bat detector skills (for more information on surveys click here). There are also training workshops and videos to help you with your surveying (for more information click here).

Keep up to date with NBMP on Twitter @BCT_NBMP