Bats Archives - La Societe Guernesiaise

Bat Week 2024

PEhmann — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:31:37 +0000

It’s Bat Week, a week to celebrate the role of bats in nature.

Bat Week is an international celebration designed to highlight the importance of bats and the ongoing conservation efforts needed to protect these incredible creatures.

Held from 24th to 31st October we will be posting some information about our bats this week.
Bats are keystone species, this means they have an important role in keeping the ecosystem in balance. If bat populations reduce all other plants and animals in the ecosystem will suffer along with humans.

The Common Pipistrelle is the most abundant bat species in the Bailiwick. The common pipistrelle bat is very small weighing around 5 grams which is the same as a 20p piece. Despite their size however, a single pipistrelle can eat 3,000 tiny insects in just one night!

This is the last week of the 2024 Bailiwick Bat Survey.

At the end of each year, BTO produces an annual summary report of the findings. The reports include a full species-by-species breakdown of spatial, seasonal and through-the-night patterns of activity.

You can read the 2023 Bailiwick Bat Survey Report here – https://www.bto.org/…/newson_et_al_2024_bto_rr_764.pdf

During 2023, 582 different locations across the Bailiwick of Guernsey were surveyed. Recording was undertaken on 228 different nights mainly between April and the end of October, amounting to a total of 2,260 nights of recording effort across sites.

The Guernsey Bat Group will be leading a Guided Bat Walk on Sunday 27th October at Saumarez Park, from 5.15pm.

Please check their facebook page for updates.

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The Bailiwick Bat Survey is here for 2024!

PEhmann — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 10:57:33 +0000

Are you batty about bats? Then you’re in luck – the Bailiwick Bat Survey is here for 2024!

Now is your final year to take part in this brilliant citizen science project. We love being a partner in this project. The survey provides people in the Bailiwick with an invaluable opportunity to take part in something which is making a huge impact towards nature conservation. Anyone can get involved – you don’t need to be an expert!

Please head to their website to read more about the survey and how you can book in. https://bats.org.gg/

Daniel Hargreaves

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Bat Week 2023 – Introducing the Bats of the Bailiwick

PEhmann — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 10:17:26 +0000

Bat Week 2023 Introducing Bats of the Bailiwick

La Société Guernesiaise Bat Section – Guernsey Bats are passionate about bats, and we have been finding that many people living on the islands feel the same. We aim to survey and monitor bat populations, roosts, hibernacula and foraging sites in the Bailiwick, and provide information and education regarding bats to the public.

Anyone with an interest in bats is welcome to join the group. We hold regular meetings and run both summer and winter surveys of the island roosts. We have members walks and public bat walks and opportunities to attend presentations about bats in Guernsey.

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Bat section shortlisted for the Peter Walpole’s People Choice Award – Vote Now

PEhmann — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 09:51:34 +0000

The Bat section of La Société Guernesiaise has been shortlisted for the Peter Walpole’s People’s Choice award by the Insurance Corporation of the Channel Islands. This is going live on Monday 5^th June and is running until the 11^th June and we would love as many people as possible to vote for our project. Please follow this link to see all the entries – https://insurancecorporation.com/community/guernsey-vote-the-peter-walpole-peoples-choice-award

The Bat section of La Société Guernesiaise, with support from ACLMS is undertaking an ambitious project to determine the locations of winter roosts for bats. The project has just completed its second year, and we are now looking forward to the winter of 2023. In order to monitor roosts, we place a static detector either in or outside the tunnels (mainly abandoned German tunnels, but also some natural features). We currently have 3 long-term detectors, and then access to a further 4 through ACLMS. If we had more of these detectors, and more of the longer lasting rechargable lithium batteries, we could survey more areas, and for longer.

We know that Guernsey is home to a large number of bats, which are listed by the European Commission as “priority species”. There is currently little or no protection for bat roosts within the islands. We hope to collect sufficient data to demonstrate the size and importance of bat roosts, and hopefully move from that to greater protection of these important habitats.

We particularly want sufficient resources to survey the old mining tunnel systems in Sark, as it is thought to be an important roost for endangered bats. We are therefore hoping for funding to cover purchase of at least one static detector (SM Mini Bat £616) plus lithium lid (£136) batteries and charger (£90 + £26). With these long term detectors, they can be left for up to 2 months, making deployment in harder to reach areas more feasible.

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The 2023 Bat Surveying Season is here!

PEhmann — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 07:38:43 +0000

The 2023 Bat Surveying Season is here!

We pleased to announce that the 2023 bat surveying season is here and the booking system is now open for volunteers to choose their squares to survey and book in their equipment!

If you’d like to take part this year, please head to our website to reserve your square and detector.

https://bats.org.gg/

We are always overwhelmed by the support we receive for this project and we hope that 2023 will be equally successful as we move into the third year of this survey.

If you have any queries, please email us at batsurvey@bats.org.gg and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!

#bailiwickbatsurvey #bats #citizenscience

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