I was lucky enough to be included in the Kent Bat Group team doing a Bechstein's Bat survey towards Edenbridge on Friday night. As the sun went down we carried all the gear down the track into the wood, unpacked the two harp traps and set them up in the specific positions that John and Shirley picked out amongst the trees in the middle of the wood. Its a very complex set-up that needs quite a lot of care to prevent damage.
We had some problems with the lure on our trap which plays "social calls" to encourage the bats to come down to the trap to investigate. However we managed to first get a long-eared bat,
and then we got a pipistrelle, which was quite vocal in the hand,
The other team got three more long-eared bats, which adds further weight to the suggestion that these are far commoner than just bat detector use might indicate, as their calls are so quiet that they are very difficult to detect.
We had packed up by midnight and we were all home by 1 a.m. A pretty good night overall!
We had some problems with the lure on our trap which plays "social calls" to encourage the bats to come down to the trap to investigate. However we managed to first get a long-eared bat,
and then we got a pipistrelle, which was quite vocal in the hand,
The other team got three more long-eared bats, which adds further weight to the suggestion that these are far commoner than just bat detector use might indicate, as their calls are so quiet that they are very difficult to detect.
We had packed up by midnight and we were all home by 1 a.m. A pretty good night overall!
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