Bat walks

On May 28^th we held our first public bat walk at Pittville Park, one of many more to come. These bat walks will build on the work we have done previously in the park and help us learn more about the bat species in the area.

Members of the public were able to come out, learn about the bats found within the park, and see them fly and hear their calls. The Boathouse Café stayed open till late for us and did a great job serving hot drinks before the event. We were also joined by the county moth recorder – Robert Homan @Vc33Moths for an evening of public moth trapping.

The evening was a great success –the weather was lovely, in total we over 250 people out in the park tonight. It was amazing to see so many people out, particularly so many families. On the bat walk we recorded 4 species of bat – pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle and noctules flying between the trees and paths. Over the lake we could see Daubenton’s bats skimming the surface feeding on the insects there.

The bat walk was aided by students from the university who has just completed the Bat Conservation Trust’s Future Recorders Scheme. This ran in the university in early May, funded by a granny from the Janet Trotter Trust, and gave 30 students training in identifying UK bat species and using bat detectors, and software, to analyse their calls. I hope this will be useful for their future careers and stimulate their interest to keep recording bats.

Robert gave us some more detail of his results from the night:

The most effective method of monitoring the moth population of any particular site is to use a light source emitting plenty of ultra-violet light; not so much moths to a flame, as moths to an 80w bulb. However, effectiveness can be mitigated by unreliability as moth trapping is highly dependent on weather conditions. Thus, on the evening of 28th May, a clear sky and a slowing dropping temperature limited the catch to just 7 species of moth. By contrast, under more favourable conditions 36 species were recorded during a trapping session in June 2018. The May total consisted of fairly common late spring species, the most abundant of which was the Common Swift. The caterpillars of this species feed on the roots of grasses and herbaceous plants and the sizeable population in the Park reflects the no-mowing policy evident in the strip of woodland between the lake and the Albermarle Gate car park.

The species list for the 28th May was: Common Swift * (10), Common Pug * (1), Willow Beauty * (1), Light Emerald (1), Treble Lines * (2), Heart and Dart (2) and Flame Shoulder * (1). There are no other records from the Park east of Tommy Taylor’s Lane for the species marked *.