Year three (2010)
During the summer of 2010 the project will be surveying across the following counties:
-
Buckinghamshire (surveying May to September)
-
Devon (completing surveys May to July)
-
Dorset (completing surveys May to July)
-
Gloucestershire (surveying May to September)
-
Kent (completing surveys May to July)
-
Somerset (surveying May to September)
-
Worcestershire (surveying May to September)
Training
Individuals from the four new bats groups joining the project this year (North Bucks, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Worcestershire) attended a four day training course in early May to provide them with the skills and equipment required for the project surveys.
Surveys
Good news, during 2010 we caught Bechstein's bats in Buckinghamshire, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Kent, Somerset and Worcestershire this year. We have now caught 33 Bechstein's bats (22 females and 11 males) this summer. In total (since 2008) the project has caught 50 Bechstein's bats at 32 sites, and we hope to catch a few more before the end of the project!
During the summer female Bechstein's bats don't tend to forage far from their roosting sites. The discovery of a female Bechstein's bat in a wood is therefore a good indication that a maternity roost is present nearby in the woodland surveyed.
We are also collecting information on other UK bat species. Many of these are new records for the woodlands in which they are found. All of the records collected as part of the project will help us in our understanding of our woodland bats at both a local and national level.
