Three years of Nathusius’ pipistrelle monitoring

Nottinghamshire Bat Group is about to embark on its fourth summer as part of the Bat Conservation Trust National Nathusius’ Pipistrelle Project. On this day three years ago, at Attenborough Nature Reserve, we caught our first Nathusius’ pipistrelle on our first survey for this ‘citizen science’ project; he was ringed A4071.

Our first Nathusius’ pipistrelle on this national project, fitted with ring A4071 before being released (photo: Lorna Griffiths).

Recently, six of our most dedicated volunteers attended a ‘mini-conference’ about the future direction of the ‘NNPP’ where we were asked to highlight our findings. Here are some ‘bat stats’ showing the survey effort and results from our participation in this national research to date:

  • 377 hours surveying across 92 nights at 13 sites (7 of them repeatedly visited);
  • 1148 bats of 11 species caught, processed and released (590 males, 568 females);
  • 84 volunteers involved from 7 different bat groups (45 males, 39 females!); and,
  • 98 different Nathusius’ pipistrelles captured, processed and released with rings (86 males, 12 females) as well as ten recaptures (all males), including one that had ‘migrated’ from Colwick Country Park to Attenborough Nature Reserve in 2015.

You can read more about our involvement in the project here. Thanks to everyone that has facilitated this in some way – we’re very much looking forward to being involved again in 2017!

Matt Cook
Project Coordinator

A Nathusius’ pipistrelle (left) alongside a soprano pipistrelle (middle) and a common pipistrelle (right) (photo: Phil Bych).

The BAT AT-100 acoustic lure used on the project, purchased with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund (photo: Matt Cook)

 

 

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