As part of the Ecological Impact Assessment module, students met Ryan Greaves, from the Bat Conservation Trust and we had the fantastic opportunity to take part in bat box checks.
The mild weather in late September meant that bats were still active and around! After an in-depth lecture on bat species and their ecology, an intro to bat boxes and the different survey tools at hand, we were ready to go an check some boxes. This year was a really good one and we found some common pipistrelle in a couple of boxes.
As part of the standard bat survey, measurements were taken, we had our smallest male with 4.5g. Pipistrelle weigh the same as a £1 coin! We concluded our training day with a bat walk, using bat detectors and listening to the clapping of the bats feeding above our heads!
This was a great start of term!
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