Taking part - licensed bat workers
Hibernation Survey
If you have a hibernation licence and you have access to any known or potential bat hibernation sites such as caves, mines, cellars or tunnels, then you are in a good position to contribute to our Hibernation Survey.
Information on training for a licence.
Summer surveys
Another option is to put your bat detector skills to good use by taking part in our bat detector surveys. The Field Survey involves surveying for noctule, serotine, common pipistrelle and soprano pipistrelle in a randomly allocated 1km square, while the Waterway Survey involves surveying for Daubenton's bat along a 1km stretch of river. If you have access to a frequency division detector (such as the Duet) and a digital recording device, you can take part in the Woodland Survey which focuses on the rare barbastelle.
If you know of any bat roosts in your area then you could also take part in the Colony Count. This involves standing outside a roost on two evenings in June and counting the bats as they emerge. Your bat detector skills can again be put to good use in verifying which species are present.
In addition, you might like to help us locate other roosts in your area by taking part in the Sunset/Sunrise Survey. This simply involves looking for bats at sunset and/or walking a route of your choice just before sunrise to look for bats 'swarming' at roost entrances. But if you are good with a bat detector then we would prefer you to use your skills more fully and take part in the field surveys or colony counts.
If you are interested in improving your skills we run bat detector workshops, so that volunteers can take part in our surveys.