14 Mar Supporting professional development: Bat hibernation training
Earlier this year Ecologists from our Derbyshire and Newcastle offices visited a long-running BSG Ecology project in northern England to undertake bat hibernation training alongside commissioned survey work. The Site is a former slate quarry, which includes several underground quarried voids, forming large and complex caverns. Previous work has recorded six species of bat hibernating at the caverns.
The day was led by senior bat ecologists from BSG and attended by colleagues who are working towards their bat licences. During the day the ecologists explored topics including how bats may use underground sites at certain times of the year, how air flow and temperature influence where bats may be found, and how to search for bats in these sites safely and effectively.
A large part of the day was spent putting this theory into practice, surveying the cave for bats and identifying them using torches, binoculars and endoscopes. A number of bats were found including Daubenton’s and whiskered / Brandt’s bats as well as other residents of the caverns, including herald moths and cave spiders.
This was a great opportunity to use one of our current projects for an unusual and informative day of training.
“A really fun and interesting experience, where the entire day was structured to not only gain experience looking for hibernating bats, but also gave us an opportunity to think about the creation of a mitigation cave and the technicalities of excluding hibernating bats, as well as asking as many questions as possible! I came away knowing more about hibernating bats than I did when I arrived thanks to super knowledgeable colleagues .” Naomi Eckersley, Ecologist
