‘Understanding Your Environment’ is an exciting pilot project to enable you to find out more about your local bats. Bats obviously fly at night when it is hard to see them and we cannot usually hear them. This means we do not always know what types of bats are about – or if they are present at all. Fortunately, modern technology means we can eavesdrop into their world by using bat detectors to record their high frequency calls.
Bats in your belfry?!
Brown long-eared bat © Hugh Clark
Help is at hand to identify your local bats in Anglesey, Gwynedd, and west of the River Conwy
There are 17 species of bats known to be resident in the UK – 15 of these are in Wales. They are all different and each have their own ecological needs so it is important that we learn more about what species of bat we have and where they occur.
The project enables you to borrow a bat detector pack from a local loan centre (Bangor, Penrhyndeudraeth, or Llangefni) for a few nights to automatically record your local bats’ echolocation calls. This could be in a woodland, local park or even in your back garden. Bat Conservation Trust will analyse the recordings and send you a report back identifying what you found, and an indication of the level of activity.