Bat detector training at the Idle Valley Nature Reserve

IV bat detector workshop

12 people attended the latest of our introductory bat detector workshops at the Idle Valley Nature Reserve on Sunday evening.  These sessions have been developed to help people new to bat detectors start on the road to becoming fully fledged bat detectorists.  A basic heterodyne detector costs less than £60 and with a little bit of practice can be a very serious survey tool.  They are also great fun to use.

IV bat detector workshop2

The evening started with a session in the classroom which will covered all the basics including a brief introduction about bats in general, the species we find in the UK and more specifically in Nottinghamshire, the types of bat calls and how to use the detector.  There were lots of locally recorded bat sounds played to help illustrate the varied sounds that different species make.

IV bat detector workshop3

After the classroom session we set out onto the reserve to put the newly acquired skills to the test.  Unfortunately the bats has other ideas and were hard to find and were only giving us a short amount of time to tune in as they zoomed past on their way to somewhere else.  Things improved a little later and we eventually recorded common and soprano pipsitrelles, noctule and at least one myotis species.

 

Posted in News.