hmg newsletter 2015-10 - microsoftbtckstorage.blob.core.windows.net/site7731/newsletters/hmg... ·...
TRANSCRIPT
1
HEREFORDSHIRE MAMMAL GROUP AUTUMN NEWSLETTER (October to December 2015)
What’s Inside? Autumn Events 1 New Members 1 Membership 1 Annual General Meeting -‐ 2015 1 News in Brief 2 Research News 4 Bromyard Downs Bioblitz -‐ 2015 5 Badger Vaccination Project Update 6 Water Shrew Surveys 7 Dormouse Project Updates 9 Bat Projects Update 9 Bats & Roadside Mammals -‐ 2016 11 HMG Contacts 13 *************************************** Autumn Events OCTOBER Sunday, 4th October 2015, 10:00 Bat and Dormouse Box Check Frith Wood, Wellington Heath Meet at wood entrance at SO723405 Contact Denise Foster via HMG Sunday, 18th October 2015, 10:00 Bat Box Check Lea and Paget’s Wood Meet in lay-‐by at the side of road at SO595346 Contact Denise Foster via HMG Saturday, 24th October 2015, 10:00 Bat Box Check Old Country Wood Meet at Old Country House (SO726446) Contact David Lee via HMG NOVEMBER Monday, 2nd November 2015, 19:30 AGM followed by a talk by Derek Crawley on Foxes and Badgers. Bunch of Carrots Inn, Hampton Bishop, Hereford, HR1 4JR (There will be a small charge at this event to cover costs)
NEW MEMBERS & MEMBERSHIP Louise Scott, Membership Secretary We currently have 95 paid up members in HMG and 166 followers on Facebook. We would like to welcome the following new members to HMG: Claire Dovey, Richard Ball, Robert and Rowan Luxton, Brian Phillips, Tim Kaye and Rebecca Hone. Membership Subscriptions I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to all the members of Herefordshire Mammal Group for their support during the past year. May I kindly remind you that your membership expired at the end of September 2015 with subscriptions due at the beginning of October 2015? Members who joined the group in August and September are covered until the end of September 2016. The cost remains at £7.50 for the family and covers insurance for any event you attend. If you plan to join us at the AGM then this is a good opportunity to bring your remittance along with you. AGM – 2nd November 2015 This year’s AGM will be held at the Bunch of Carrots Inn on 2nd November at 19:30. This year, Denise Foster and Louise Scott will be standing down from the committee. Mike Bailey and Joe Allsopp are standing for election to take their places; if anyone else would like to stand as a committee member, please contact Dave Smith by 18th October. Denise and Louise have been invaluable members of our committee and Denise will be continuing her bat work in the county as an ordinary member. We are also proposing some changes to the constitution; these proposals have been sent to
2
all our members well in advance of the AGM when you will all have a chance to vote. Proceedings will begin at 7.30 pm and will be followed by an illustrated talk on ‘Foxes and Badgers: Our Underground Neighbours’, given by Derek Crawley who is chairman of the Staffordshire Mammal Group. Derek will tell us about their lifestyles and ecology, and how they interact within each other’s territories. I look forward to seeing many of you there.
© Paul Cecil www.permuted.org.uk
NEWS IN BRIEF BCT’s West Midlands Regional Bat Conference 2016 The next regional BCT bat conference will be held on the 12th March, 2016. A date for your diary! Beavers in Britain – HMG Annual Outing by Sophie Cowling In July, ten members of Herefordshire Mammal Group attended this year’s annual outing -‐ and what a trip it was! Derek Gow is famous in the conservation world for breeding water voles and co-‐ordinating their reintroduction at sites such as Gwent Wildlife Trust’s Magor Marsh. However he has a wide range of other British mammals at his farm in Lifton, Devon -‐ including wildcat, pine martens, red squirrels, polecats, otters, Heck cattle and beavers. Derek provided us with vivid tales of the history of British
wildlife, his current projects and his future plans for the reintroduction of species, some of which became extinct in the UK hundreds of years ago.
Photo: Water vole pens, each of which contains a breeding pair of water voles with young The highlight of the day was a visit to a wet woodland site where Derek, working in partnership with landowner John Morgan, and Devon Wildlife Trust, has released a small family of Beavers. The results are astounding; the beavers have intricately woven branches and saplings into dams, forming a series of wetland pools and marshy grassland. This marshy woodland was alive with froglets, butterflies, grasshoppers, and a fantastic diversity of wildflowers.
Photo: An intricate dam created by the beavers Unfortunately we did not see the beavers themselves, since they are able to hold their breath for up to 15 minutes underwater! However it was amazing to see signs of their activity, such as a well-‐constructed lodge, perfectly pencil-‐shaped tree trunks and heaps of “pencil sharpenings”.
3
Photo: The Beaver’s Lodge It was brilliant to hear from John about the benefits of having the beavers on his land. Areas that previously had flooded year on year, no longer did so, thanks to the pooling created by the beavers on non-‐viable agricultural land, which showed us how much beavers can benefit both wildlife and farming. All in all it was a truly eye opening experience of what Britain used to be like, and what it could be like again in the future. A big thank-‐you to Derek for showing us around the farm and sharing his enthusiasm with us! Mammal Recycling -‐ by Martin Hales
Did you know wasps eat meat? In actual fact it’s only the wasp larvae that get the remains of insects such as bees, caterpillars or flies, brought to them by the foraging adult wasps.
Photo: Martin Hales
I hadn’t previously seen wasps snacking on a mammal carcass before, so I was particularly interested in this picture of a recently expired bat being hollowed out by several wasps. My friend Sherwood spotted it in his wood, along with the remains of a mouse disappearing in the same manner nearby. Given the open location of the mammal carcasses, I imagine it was a cat that killed them and the wasps were just taking advantage of a free meal.
Photo: Martin Hales Dead bats are sometimes found desiccated in old barns or derelict buildings but it is unusual to find a fresh specimen out in the open. The only other examples I can think of are bat casualties underneath wind turbines. So the next time you see a wasp you can ponder on what it was likely fed on as a youngster. Woolhope Dome Environmental Trust Fund Application -‐ Equipment Update The Herefordshire Mammal Group was presented with a cheque for £5,000 by the Woolhope Dome Environmental Trust in September.
The project, which mainly focusses on radio-‐tracking bat species, will commence in 2016.
HMG has already received most of the equipment, which includes two radio receivers, two Yagi antennae, one whip antennae for tracking by car and two Anabat Express bat detectors.
Target bat species include brown long-‐eared, Barbastelle and any Myotis species caught during trapping sessions. Trees that contain roosts will be marked and recorded in order to protect the roosts.
4
Photo Courtesy Ian Tanner – Presentation of the cheque from the Woolhope Dome Environmental Trust. The WDET have given their permission for us to use this equipment for other county projects (except the radio-‐tags) when they are not in use for the Woolhope Dome. If you are interested in getting involved with this project, please contact Denise Foster. Linton Brownies Bat Walk -‐ by Joe Allsopp
Linton Brownies got to learn all about bats during an event in September. Fifteen girls aged between 7 and 10 years old came to Drummond’s Dub lake to learn what bats eat, where they live, and also some of the different kinds of bat present in the county. The Brownies were able to try out for themselves some of HMG’s bat detectors during a walk around the lake. For the Brownies, the walk will count towards the “Endangered animals” section of their “Friend to animals” badge. The walk was led by HMG member Joe Allsopp who is currently training to become a roost visitor for Natural England’s free bat roost visitor scheme. Leading bat educational events and public outreach is a crucial part of training for a roost visitor licence. Everyone who attended seemed to have fun and enjoy the walk! Bill Wiggin, MP for South Herefordshire shows support for bat conservation in Herefordshire -‐ by Denise Foster When I wrote a letter to my local MP earlier this year about the private member’s bill when they were due to vote on the Bats Habitat Regulation
Bill, I was very surprised that, within minutes of my email being received, Bill Wiggin called to discuss this issue with me, which lead onto other issues around bats and development. I was very encouraged and surprised that all correspondence sent to my local MP was read and acted upon in a timely manner.
Photo: Talking bats with Bill Wiggin at his farm in Herefordshire I am really pleased that this positive response has now been extended to the Bat Conservation Trust. Two members of BCT met with Bill Wiggin this month to discuss issues regarding bats, permitted development as well as other topics. The outcome of this meeting is still being discussed but this is what I recently received from BCT’s Joint CEO Kit Stoner “The Bat Conservation Trust was recently granted a meeting with Bill Wiggin, the Conservative MP for North Herefordshire, to discuss their concerns around permitted development. This was made possible by the excellent relationship built up by Denise Foster who wrote to him about the proposed Bat Habitats Regulation Bill earlier this year. Whilst there is not a simple solution to this issue, Bill was helpful in suggesting some new approaches and is clearly supportive of bat conservation”.
Research News Sniffer Dogs for Harvest Mice Those of us who have taken part in harvest mouse nest hunts will know how difficult it can be to find traces of these animals. PTES has awarded a grant to PhD student Emily Howard-‐
5
Williams from Moulton College to investigate the use of sniffer dogs to detect the scent of harvest mice. We know that Johnny Birks’ labrador, Dooley, has proved adept at finding pine marten scats and sniffer dogs have also proved successful locating bat carcasses around wind turbines, so it will be interesting to see whether Emily’s retriever will be able to do the same for harvest mice. Pine martens arrive in Wales The Vincent Wildlife Trust has begun the reintroduction of pine martens into woodlands in mid Wales. The first animals, caught in Scotland, arrived in Wales at the end of September. VWT aims initially to release 20 pine martens and a further 20 animals next autumn. It is hoped that this should result in a self-‐sustaining population that will spread into other Welsh forests and eventually over the border into England. http://www.vwt.org.uk/news/pine-‐martens-‐arrive-‐in-‐wales Bromyard Downs Bioblitz 2015 -‐ by Louise Scott For the second year running Herefordshire Mammal Group contributed to 24 hours of concentrated ecological recording and community training on the Bromyard Downs. Herefordshire Wildlife Trust working in partnership with The Bromyard Downs Common Association (BDCA) aims to conserve and improve the largest Common land in Herefordshire and provide a useful resource for the local community. Rising to above 700 feet on the East of the town of Bromyard, there are swathes of traditional grassland; relic heathland patches; springs with small watercourses and scrub encroached ponds, all contributing to the diversity of the site. Oak dominated woodland provides an important link into the neighbouring National Trust land at Brockhampton. HMG Member Angus Walker, photographer and film maker, has created an inspiring short video “The Bromyard Downs – The Jewel of Herefordshire.”
Check it out here: www.herefordshirewt.org/what-‐we-‐do/living-‐landscapes/north-‐east-‐herefordshire-‐hills/bromyard-‐downs-‐common This year 304 species were recorded and over 300 people, including ecological surveyors, volunteers, and school children, contributed and attended the community event. Daytime saw scheduled surveys for wildflowers, butterflies, birds, reptiles, bees, dragonflies & damselflies and signs of small mammals. Night surveys were run for small mammals, bats, moths and glow worms.
Photo Hannah Welsh Dave Smith, Herefordshire Mammal Group’s Co-‐ordinator set up a stall displaying the work that we do in the county with samples of mammal paraphernalia and literature and gave a talk about small mammal ecology to a group of primary school children along with some parents. He also talked about live mammal trapping and demonstrated how to bait the Longworth traps. All the children were able to have a go preparing the traps with fresh hay for bedding material along with a variety of sustenance items which helped to lure the small mammals into the overnight refuges. Eight traps were set around the campsite and a series of traps was distributed on the common and around a pond located to the south east. Early morning checks revealed that some of the triggers had been activated but on this occasion only bank voles were recorded. Other mammals
6
noted during the 2015 Bioblitz include live sightings of muntjac deer and squirrel, together with signs of field vole, mole, rabbit and hedgehog. Badger and fox were recorded by camera traps.
Photo Hannah Walsh Joe Allsopp of Herefordshire Mammal Group gave a talk to a large group of school children about dormouse ecology and initiated a hunt for signs of these adorable mammals. Dormouse was successfully recorded at the event when a hazelnut was found by one of the children revealing the classic gnawing technique.
Photo: Louise Scott Louise Scott, ecologist and HMG member led a group of Bromyard Downs Bat Volunteers around a preliminary daytime circular walk. Louise arranged for The Bromyard Downs to be added to The Bat Conservation Trust’s National Bat Monitoring Programme and the Bioblitz was an ideal opportunity to identify the walks and spots of the new Field Survey site. The volunteers then joined a larger group led by Lucy Fay, ecologist and HMG member, for an introductory talk on bats and bat detecting. The group then merged with the glow worm hunters
for a night walk. Recordings during the walk indicate the usage of the area by both common and soprano pipistrelles and also Myotis species. Oh and we did see a glow worm! The 24 hour Bioblitz event provided a great opportunity for Herefordshire Mammal Group and other naturalists to support the local community, to educate youngsters and adults alike and to liaise with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust in their partnership with the Bromyard Downs Common Association.
Badger Vaccination Project Update – Vaccination Triumph -‐ by Melinda Crook (Herefordshire Badger Group)
Photo: Neil Phillips
Our project was a tremendous success. We vaccinated 12 badgers -‐ over half the population at the one site. To achieve herd immunity we need to vaccinate one third of the population, so we have an excellent result here. We return to the site every year for four years to vaccinate. Why do we vaccinate for four years? APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency) scientists have found that over four years the population will have achieved sustainable herd immunity to Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB). Our project began two months before vaccination; the land owners used bait to familiarize the wild badgers with the taste of peanuts. This worked well and the landowners were rewarded by sightings of their badgers. Mid-‐July I started the baiting in earnest. I went every afternoon to place bait under stones, getting the badgers used to lifting a stone to obtain a tasty treat. This job is essential to the
7
project and we need more pre-‐baiters to help with this job. It is an interesting job and you really get to know the environment and the animals. We installed trail cameras and found pictures of badgers, hedgehogs (living happily side by side with the badgers) and squirrels. Our badger pictures enabled us to gain a good estimate of the population. Having spoken to many other badger groups we all agree that a sett rarely has more than six badgers in residence. Many thanks to everyone who came out and helped to site the cages. This, like the pre-‐baiting, is an essential job and needs many hands to make light work. We deployed eighteen cages. These had to be dug in to ensure a flat stable base, then an inch of soil was shovelled into the cages to cover the wire bases. This is hard and thirsty work and you need to be fit to undertake the task. We need more people to help with this aspect of the work too. The vaccinator can do nothing without a good, reliable team and all members of the team are essential to the success of the project. The baiting continued for two weeks, uptake of bait was good. This was most encouraging for our vaccination days. We prayed for good weather on the vaccination days as you cannot trap badgers on nights when it is cold, wet and windy. The animal would suffer. Fortunately we had dry weather for our vaccination. We got up at 3am to start vaccination at 4.30am. On the first day we trapped and vaccinated ten badgers, all were fit and lively. We mark vaccinated badgers with farm dye. On the second day there were five re-‐captures (so the badgers were not put off by the injection on the first day!). Also we had two new badgers bringing our final total of badgers vaccinated to twelve. This is fascinating and essential work to control bTB. Vaccination is the only badger control measure that has been rigorously scientifically researched. Research into culling lacked the rigorous controls needed to prove success. The scientists at APHA say this is the way to go and that culling is not the scientific method of choice.
If you think that you can help to further our vaccination work in Herefordshire, then please do contact me (contact details below). I am running courses in ‘Field surveying’ (21st November 2015) and in ‘Pre-‐baiting and cage siting’ (date to be decided in 2016). As an accredited vaccinator I can provide this training, which can be used instead of the training provided by APHA (the APHA training costs in the region of £500 for the two courses, so by doing training within our group we can save money). We urgently need people who can help with vaccination, also we need more vaccinators. If anyone feels they would like to train as a vaccinator, and can spare the time to undertake this work, please let me know. One vaccinator cannot cover the whole of Herefordshire. Next year the cull may come to Herefordshire but vaccinated badgers will not be culled. At present we are vaccinating on just two sites; can we do more to protect more badgers? This can only happen if there are more people to help. Vaccinator contact details: [email protected] (phone: 07811 639245)
Water shrew bait tube surveys -‐ by Joe Allsopp The water shrew is not well understood, and doesn’t receive much attention – could this partly be because it’s had to live in the shadow of the otter and water vole for so long? I think this is a little unfair, and I want to do my bit to help bring it more into the spotlight! With a keel of hairs on the underside of its tail to help it when swimming, some individuals are almost stunningly black and white in colour. It’s also highly unusual amongst mammals in being venomous (don’t be frightened though! – even if they can break the skin, people who have been bitten talk of the bite area being slightly tender for a couple of days with no lasting harm done). In fact it can be found considerable distance from water and appears to be much less tied to water bodies than say otters and water voles. Like our other shrew species they feed primarily on invertebrates, but they’re the only one to also include aquatic invertebrates in their diet –
8
key species include water slaters (Asellus), shrimps (Gammarus) and caddis fly larvae.
Photo courtesy: The Mammal Society I decided to try and do some bait tube surveys for the first time in 2015. This survey technique has some distinct advantages, being non-‐intrusive with almost no risk of harming small mammals, fairly inexpensive, and the field work side is also not very labour-‐intensive. Bait such as mealworms are put in the tubes, and then any droppings that are subsequently deposited by small mammals feeding on the bait inside can be identified. The droppings of all shrew species will crumble easily when dry, unlike rodent droppings which will stay tough and fibrous. Water shrew scats are larger, more silvery grey in colour than other shrew droppings, and when dissected and viewed under a binocular microscope, are the only shrew droppings to contain body parts of aquatic invertebrates such as Asellus and Gammarus. Tube surveys can be carried out at any time of the year, but the optimum time is from July to September. The process can be summed up as follows: 1. Get a standard piece of 40mm diameter plastic tubing from a DIY shop, and cut it into 20cm lengths. 2. Cover one end of the tube with a piece cut out of an old pair of tights, muslin or some net curtain, secured with a rubber band, to hold the bait in place. 3. Put a small handful of bait in each tube. This could be either blowfly pupae available from angling shops (casters), or dried mealworms.
4. Place each tube within 2m of the water’s edge -‐ in herbaceous cover if possible, rather
than on bare/heavily grazed areas. Space the tubes about 10m apart, and put out at least 10 tubes at a site if possible. 5. Simply leave the tubes for 2 weeks – no need to re-‐bait -‐ and then collect them carefully. The tubes should be left to air dry, and then any droppings in the tubes should be scraped out and stored and labelled. 6. Analyse the droppings under a binocular/ dissecting microscope (probably the most difficult and time consuming part of the whole survey process).
Photo: Joe Allsopp The results My results so far have been, shall we say, mixed! I’m afraid my greatest limitation has been time, as I’ve had much less time to survey than I’d hoped. But the locations where I have managed to put some tubes this year are: Wern Wood HWT (10 tubes placed in March), Madley Moat (10 tubes placed in March), Lugg Rhea (10 tubes in May), Tuck Mill (10 tubes in June, 10 in July), Titley Pool HWT (10 tubes in July). Apart from Madley Moat, all the bait was taken/eaten from all the tubes. Droppings of any kind were only found in 2 tubes – 1 from Tuck Mill, and 1 from Titley Pool. Neither contained water shrew droppings. Of course these results are definitely NOT evidence that water shrews are not present at these sites. For future surveys, I will try and place more tubes (20 minimum) and make sure I
9
find time between July and September to do them. Would you like to help increase our understanding of how water shrews are faring in Herefordshire? Please let me know if you think you’ve seen one. Maybe your cat has brought a dead one home, or you’ve been lucky enough to see a live animal? Even if the sighting was a few years ago, it’s still very useful. Or do you know of a stream, river or pond near you where you’d like to survey? Let me know and I’ll help you get started – the tubes are cheap to make yourself, but I can also lend you some. If you don’t want to analyse the droppings yourself, then you can just do the field work if you like, and send any droppings to me. Lastly, if you have some experience live trapping and you’d like to do some, then the mammal group has some Longworth traps that you can borrow. Contact me at [email protected]. Dormouse Co-‐Ordinator Update -‐ by Ann Bowker As I write, autumn is settling in; the busiest season for dormice (and their surveyors!) Personally, I usually take a break in August, as I have generally found the boxes untenanted round here in that month and assumed the dormice prefer to be out and about. In confirmation of this I was looking out of our kitchen window at 11:30am on the first of the month and there was a dormouse on our bird feeder. It stayed about 10 minutes and I was able to creep close enough to take a photo before it decided discretion was the better part of valour! Some years ago under similar circumstances I was amused to note that dormice will hide behind a pole or tree trunk when feeling themselves under observation, just as squirrels and some birds do. Last week we checked the boxes I have along the hillside here in Malvern Wells and found a dormouse mother with a tightly woven nest in which I could just feel some tiny babies. I did not disturb them further. They are less than 100 yards from our house. Sadly they were the only dormice found this month. It has not been a very good year on this side of the Hills.
Thankfully Park Wood to the West on the border of Herefordshire has been very encouraging.
Photo: Denise Foster So we are into a busy time and on September 12th ten of us visited our Golden Valley sites again and found either nests, dormice or both at all four sites -‐ a very satisfactory day. Many thanks to all who came! Our final visit to check and collect the tubes will be on Saturday 31st October, so do please let me know if you would like to join us. No previous experience necessary. ([email protected]) Kate Wollen and I have found 9 nests in the tubes we put up near Much Marcle as part of a Ledbury Naturalists survey which is another new site. In the meantime, Denise has organised a bat and dormouse box check at Frith Wood just north of Ledbury where I hope the group are joined by some other keen dormousers and hopefully some dormice themselves! Unfortunately I have family commitments that weekend. I shall be most interested to know how everyone has fared this year in their regular monitoring and hope to chat to people at the AGM.
Bat Projects Update -‐ by Denise Foster Woodland Bats and Mammal Atlas Trapping Trapping started after the bat maternity season, the 3rd week of July, and we performed ten surveys in total until the end of September. Overall, the weather this summer has not been
10
particularly favourable, which has been due mainly to the high winds and the low night temperatures during August which has affected bats behaviour. August should have been a key month for trapping bats! However, we did get some interesting results which are listed below: Frith Wood continues to be important for woodland bats. During one trapping session at Frith in July we caught a total of 29 bats and 8 species including the rare Bechstein’s bat. This result confirms findings in 2013 and 2014. Overall, 9 species of bat are confirmed using Frith Wood and at least 6 species are breeding.
Photo: Male Adult Bechstein’s bat caught in Frith Wood Berrington Hall Nr Leominster also proved to be an important site for bats. Two trapping events took place at the lake in August and September. Overall, we caught 70 bats and 11 species. We had number of surprises too. One surprise was catching two female Bechstein’s bats at the first visit – one of which was lactating. We also caught a male Bechstein’s at the second visit.
Photo: The mystery bat, which had characteristics of Alcathoe.
The second surprise was catching a mystery bat which had characteristics of the relatively new UK listed species, the Alcathoe. Unfortunately, we cannot declare this to be an official record because we needed to collect bat droppings from this animal for DNA analysis and despite holding it for 30 minutes it failed to produce one! However, we plan on a return visit to Berrington Hall next season. Bats and Swifts in Churches Project Surveying churches for bats started in May and ended in July which nicely fitted in with our other ongoing projects. This year we carried out a total of 18 preliminary surveys, 6 full surveys and 1 official roost visit. Some churches were revisited a number of times to determine how bats were using the church.
Photo: Eastnor Church Eastnor church proved interesting because the vicar genuinely believed that there were no bats using the church and she was surprised we found a small lesser horseshoe roost, which may be transitional, and a single serotine roost which is most likely a lone male. Pembridge and Wellington Churches were revisited. Considering the amount of disruption they caused to both churches last year, bat droppings have been minimal this year, despite the number of Natterer’s bats using both churches remaining constant. Overall, since the project started in 2014 we have surveyed 51 churches and carried out 3 official Natural England Roost visits. We have decided to apply for a small Heritage Lottery Funding grant to provide bat and swift
11
boxes, and educational materials for seven Herefordshire churches; our application will be discussed by the HLF in October.
Photo: Natterer’s bats were found in both Wellington and Pembridge Churches The Diocese of Hereford has added the Herefordshire Mammal Group on their ‘approved list' of suppliers of information regarding resident wildlife in churches. It is nice to know that the Bats and Swifts in Churches Project is having an impact. Bat Box Checks We managed to visit most of our sites this summer, which include six Herefordshire Wildlife Trust sites (Titley Pool, Brilley Green Dingle, Lea and Paget’s, The Nupend, White Rocks and Woodside), two private woodlands (Ast and Old Country Woods) and our new site, owned by the Forestry Commission (Frith Wood).
Photo: Checking bat boxes in Lea and Paget’s Wood Lea and Paget’s, Frith, Ast and Old Country Woods remain important sites for both Bechstein’s and brown long-‐eared bats, so these woodlands will continue to be monitored on a
regular basis. Ringing projects associated with these sites will be covered in the Winter Newsletter once all the data has been entered. Here are some of the highlights for bat box checks this summer: Old Country Wood -‐ We encountered most of the Bechstein’s bat maternity colony; preliminary results suggest that only a small percentage of females bred this year. Lea and Paget’s -‐ We did not encounter all members of the brown long-‐eared colony in Lea and Paget’s that were ringed in 2014. However, we did encounter seven unringed adult females which suggests that this colony may be larger than we initially thought. A maternity colony of Natterer’s bats turned up again in the September check, as happened last year. It would be interesting to know where these bats came from, where they are heading and why they are stopping off at Lea and Paget’s! Titley Pool and Ast Wood -‐ We have encountered brown long-‐eared bat maternity colonies in both woods this summer, which is a great result for both sites. Bats & Roadside Mammals Surveys – 2016 -‐ by David Lee As Denise has reported in the previous article, our existing bat survey projects continue to produce a wealth of data and new records. However, these projects involve intensive effort in specific locations so, inevitably, can only cover a very small fraction of the county at this level of detail. In order to gather the information needed to produce county species distribution maps a more broad-‐brush approach is required. Road transect surveys using car-‐mounted bat detectors, backed up with GPS information, provide a rapid and efficient means of gathering bat records over a wide area and have increasingly been used worldwide over the last few years, with great success. Since 2013 volunteers from Worcestershire Bat Group have driven more than 1000km and gathered 2262 new bat records.
12
The Woolhope Dome Environmental Trust funding (page 3) included two Anabat Express bat detectors that are ideal for the job. They have built-‐in GPS receivers that record a continuous GPS track, as well as geo-‐referencing individual bat call recordings, and they record directly to a memory card. They are also very easy to set up – with only two buttons to press.
Photo: Anabat Express Bat Detector (grid = 1cm)
Photo: The Anabat Express open for setting up The Anabat system also has a dedicated free analysis program – Analook – which is straightforward to use for call identification.
Soprano pipistrelle calls displayed in Analook
The detector microphone is mounted just inside the near-‐side rear car window using a suction mount, pointing slightly upwards, and an amber flashing beacon and warning signs in the rear window complete the setup. The survey team comprises a driver and an observer/navigator and the survey should begin about 30-‐45 minutes after sunset, once the detector has acquired a GPS location. The team then follows a pre-‐planned survey route of between 15 and 25 miles at a speed of around 15mph – avoiding busy roads as far as possible. During the survey, the observer records the times of any mammal sightings. Positions of the sightings can be obtained later from the GPS record.
Photo: Anabat microphone mounted in car window
Photo: Ready to Survey! We carried out a 25 mile trial survey around the Woolhope dome at the end of August and the results are shown below. The trial survey was good fun and our route covered about 40×1km squares in less than 2 hours!
13
We will have two sets of equipment available so there will be plenty of opportunity to take part next year. No previous experience is necessary and we will be running a training workshop at the start of the season. If you would like to be involved in any way – surveying, analyzing data or both – or would like
any further information then please let me know. If there are any keen nocturnal mountain bikers out there then this survey could be for you as well. The detectors are very light and the microphone can easily be clipped to a cycle helmet.
Bats and Roadside Mammals Survey -‐ Woolhope Dome Transect Results – mapped using QGIS
HMG CONTACTS Chairman -‐ Dave Smith Email: [email protected] Treasurer -‐ Mike Coleman Email: [email protected] Membership Secretary -‐ Louise Scott Email: [email protected] Bat Co-‐ordinator and Newsletter Editor -‐ Denise Foster Email: [email protected] Deer Co-‐ordinator -‐ Martin Hales Email: [email protected]
Committee Member -‐ David Lee Email: [email protected] County Mammal Recorder (Co-‐opted) – Joe Allsopp Email: [email protected] Dormouse Co-‐ordinator (Co-‐opted)-‐Ann Bowker Email: [email protected] Wildlife and Bridges Co-‐ordinator (Co-‐opted) -‐ Nick Underhill-‐Day Email: [email protected] HMG Main Email: Email: [email protected]