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Wednesday 28 September 2011

End of the Season

Well,

It is getting to the point were the bat season is finishing up, I have arranged a final survey of Luton Hoo, in October, and there are a couplle of other sites being looked at over the next couple of weeks.

I'll bring updates as and when these have occurred.

I also had an e-mail from the chairman of the Somerset bat group yesterday boosting that he had found a male Bechsteins bat Myotis bechsteinii in woodland not prevouisly known for this species, typical Somerset boosting followed, never-mind us lot in Bedfrodshire can only keep looking!!

Martin

Monday 19 September 2011

National Bat Conference

The weekend saw several of the BBG go to the natioanl conference.

It was my first time going and really enjoyed the experience, there was a hell of a lot to take in, with several talks about habitat modelling, detectors and generally what BCT had been up to.

Much merryment was had in the evenings, with certain people getting very little sleep.

Over all a good weekend and I will be going again.

Martin

Sunday 11 September 2011

First Box Check at Kings Wood




Bob, Aidan, Jonathan, Simon, Jake and I did the first bat box check yesterday.


We thought that it would take about 6hrs (with Bob expecting to not find bats) the rest of us were not so sure.


The first box checked a single common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) was found. By the time we had checked 9 boxes three species, including brown long eared bat Plecotus auritus and soprano pipistrelle P. pygmaeus had been found. Other boxes had droppings found indicating that bats had been using them.


Many were juvenile bats, but a great start to the project. Needless to say all of the boxes were not checked this time round, but we will look at having another check in October.


The interesting thing was that we also found several tree roosts in Oak Querus robur in a small area of the wood. Jake (12 yrs old) had wondered off, so I went to find him, on the way I noticed several holes in trees and managed to find brown long eared droppings in one, at least one other hole had droppings as well.

Martin