Wales Bat Worker's Weekend

This weekend brings together bat worker's across Wales to develop their knowledge and skills as well as catch up with old acquaintances and make new friends.

It offers an exciting programme of talks, workshops and evening fieldwork on Saturday night features new technologies, community engagement projects and other insights into bat conservation and research.

The Wales Bat Worker's Weekend 2019 took place on Sat 11 May - Sun 12 May 2019 at Glyndwr University, Wrexham.

The programme:

Saturday - arrival from 9:00am, welcome at 9:30am.

• Keynote speech – A Review of the Population and Conservation Status of British Mammals – Wales’ bats. Professor Fiona Mathews, Sussex University and Mammal Society Chair.
• How new technologies are revolutionising acoustic monitoring - Dr. Katherine Boughey, Bat Conservation Trust
• Searching for lesser horseshoe bat roosts using GIS - Mike Shewring, Cardiff University
• Effect of artificial light on bats – Liz Rowse, Bristol University
• Bats and Artificial Lighting Guidelines – Harry Fox Principal Ecologist, Clarkson & Woods Ltd
  
• Lunch
• QGIS: making GIS accessible to the masses! Steve Roe Derbyshire Bat Group/BCT Trustee
• Workshops:
  • Introduction to QGIS - Steve Roe
  • Data analaysis using R Studio - Mike Shewring
  • Sound analysis Hackathon – Steve Lucas
• NRW licensing update - Carys Roberts, NRW
• The Nathusius Bat Survey Project for Wales – Denise Foster, Carmarthenshire Bat Group
• News from Titley Scientific - Andrew Dobson,

Optional fieldwork on Saturday evening.

Sunday - 9:30am start

• Data analysis of fieldwork results
• BCT Update and open forum inc Deall ecosystemau – a bat detector loan pilot project - Steve Lucas and Dr Carol Williams, Bat Conservation Trust
• What high definition thermal imaging reveals about bats – Ian Baker Hampshire Bat Group
• Thermal imaging guidelines - Dr Kayleigh Fawcett, KFW Scientific & Creative
• Bats of Nietoperek, Poland – Sam Dyer, NRW
• Presentation of fieldwork results

Finished at 3:30pm

We are grateful to Natural Resources Wales for subsidising some of the costs of the event.

The Wales Bat Worker's Weekend was sponsored by Wildcare