daubenton’s – Grantham Ecology

Life after Light – Bats along Grantham Canal

October 20, 2014July 31, 2017Grantham Ecology1 Comment

It’s very nearly Halloween – what better time to introduce you to the bats which haunt Grantham Canal when darkness falls…

I spent several nights this September cycling along Grantham Canal with an EM3 bat detector connected to a GPS unit, recording the bats in flight between the A1 to the east and Hickling Basin to the west. Bats use echolocation to navigate and hunt and the bat detector converts this ultrasonic sound into something we can hear. The sound emitted by the detector tells you when a bat is there, often which species it is and sometimes even what it is doing.

You might imagine that this is quite a sinister place to be, surrounded by bats on a moonlit night, but there really is nothing to be afraid of! As the detector tapped and pattered away to announce their, I could see bats flying before me in the darkness. But even though I was cycling towards them, they elegantly avoided me every time, never making contact and certainly never tangling in my hair. This is one of the most enduring myths about bats but their fantastic echolocation abilities mean that they can ‘see’ and avoid obstacles on even the darkest of nights.

I recorded at least five species in September, some calls with ‘buzzes’ indicating foraging and some with ‘song flight’ where male soprano pipistrelles emit lower frequency social calls to attract mates. These are just on the edge of human hearing and can be heard without a detector – you may have heard the very high frequency chirrups if you walk outside at dusk in the autumn.

Common Pipistrelle

The common pipistrelle is our most abundant species in the UK, and was encountered throughout the route of the canal, particularly where there are more trees as this species specialises in hunting along ‘edge’ habitat which is typically along hedges, tree lines and other landscape features.

The orange bat symbols in this map indicate the locations where common pipistrelle bats were identified. The A1 which dissects the canal is at the far eastern end with Hickling Basin marking the western extent

Soprano Pipistrelle

The soprano pipistrelle is very similar morphologically and was not even identified as a separate species until 1992. Now they can be told apart confidently in their hand, and with fair reliability acoustically as the soprano pipistrelle calls at 55 kHz compared with the common pipipstrelle at 45 kHz. In England, the soprano pipistrelle is often found associated with water and so it was no surprise to find them along the canal. An interesting observation however is that there appears to be much more activity to the east, near to larger water bodies. Denton Reservoir lies just beside the canal towards the eastern end and is likely to be an important foraging resource for this species.

aaaa — The blue bat symbols in this map indicate the locations where soprano pipistrelle bats were identified. The A1 which dissects the canal is at the far eastern end with Hickling Basin marking the western extent

The vast majority of the recordings related to these two pipistrelle species – the other bat species were found at much lower frequencies.

The yellow bat symbols in this map indicate the locations where Natterer's bats were identified; black represents whiskered/Brandts; purple represents brown long-eared; and green represents noctule. The A1 which dissects the canal is at the far eastern end with Hickling Basin marking the western extent — The yellow bat symbols in this map indicate the locations where Natterer’s bats were identified; black represents whiskered/Brandts; purple represents brown long-eared; and green represents noctule. The A1 which dissects the canal is at the far eastern end with Hickling Basin marking the western extent

Noctule

The noctule bat is our largest species and tends to fly high and early, often the first bat to appear around sunset and can be seen in the skies as the swifts are still on the wing. Only one noctule was heard during the transects, between Denton and Woolesthorpe and picked up again near Muston. This bat is large and the sky was light meaning I could watch it flying my way, foraging as it flew to the west. This is a widespread species which favours roosting in trees, but numbers are generally lower than the pipistrelles.

Brown long-eared bat

Brown long-eared bat is one of our quietest but most charismatic bats. Their large ears make them quite charming to behold, and they are frequently found roosting in barns and other buildings. I only picked up a single instance of this bat, but their very quiet echolocation means they are generally under-recorded.

Myotis bats

The myotis bats are considered to be some of the most difficult to identify from sound alone. Daubenton’s bats are the myotis species most frequently associated with water as they specialise in flying low over still waters and taking insects on the wing or from the water’s surface. Natterer’s bat is another myotis species and some of the calls recorded along the canal in September are characteristic of this species. Whiskered and Brandt’s bats are the other two myotis species which are likely to be present in this part of the country. These two bats are very similar to one another and are difficult to separate even in the hand. Some of the calls have the characteristics of one (or both) of these two species. Whilst these species are not commonly associated with aquatic habitats, the canal also boasts hedgerows, copses and grass bank margins which provide great terrestrial habitat as well.

I encountered a whole host of other species whilst cycling along in the afterglow of sunset including barn owls, tawny owls, hares fleeing down the towpath and badgers snuffling in the hedgerows. The canal is stunning in the daytime but at night it comes alive with a whole host of new species – a walk around sunset might reveal creatures which you would not normally be privileged enough to watch.

If you are looking to commission bat surveys in the Midlands area, check out Landscape Science Consultancy’s website here!

Bat Handling Course with Echoes Ecology

June 19, 2014Grantham Ecology3 Comments

I recently travelled up to Scotland to attend a Bat Handling Course run by Echoes Ecology in Polmont. The course was an opportunity to refresh and practise my bat handling skills as well as gain more experience in the techniques used to capture bats.

The course involved two nights of trapping. On the first night we used a hand net to catch soprano pipistrelle bats at a roost near to Loch Lomond. The small size of this species requires care and delicacy when handling to ensure that their wellbeing.

The second day was spent in the Echoes Offices with presentations on handling technique, bat identification, health and safety considerations and licensing. The atmosphere was relaxed and informal as well as informative, with discussion between candidates and course leaders.

On the second night, we went to a viaduct site to capture Daubenton’s bats leaving a roost in the side of the viaduct wall. We also set up a mist net and captured a soprano pipistrelle foraging beside the canal.

I have put together a short video of the harp trapping at the viaduct, including some trailcam footage of bats exiting the roost and encountering the harp trap. This was using the ‘Field Scan’ setting on the Bushnell Trailcam as bats do not seem to trigger the unit in my experience.

I hope you enjoy the video below – if you would like further information on the courses run by Echoes Ecology, which include ornithological courses as well as bat courses, visit their website or their facebook page for more information.

BCT Artificial Light and Wildlife Symposium 2014

April 22, 2014Grantham Ecology1 Comment

The Artificial Lighting and Wildlife conference was held in London on the 20th and 21st of March 2014. It’s scope included effects on a range of wildlife but, being sponsored by BCT, bats were a key focus. Full details of the symposium can be found here. This is a short piece I wrote up for the local bat group but I’ve added in the references and a couple of illustrative photographs below!

Artificial lighting is ubiquitous and almost universally accepted – we have street lights for crime prevention and traffic safety; architectural lighting of statues and churches; lighting of industrial sites to allow work to continue 24/7; and light spill from inside houses. Three scary facts which illustrate this are:

#1 Artificial lighting increases globally at a rate of 6% per year;
#2 There are 7.4m street lights in the UK and;
#3 20% of UK energy expenditure goes on lighting.

Variations on this photograph - a satellite image of the earth at night showing the extent of artificial lighting - was the most widely used photograph throughout various talks and rightly so - it serves to show just what an impact we have on the natural environment. — Variations on this photograph – a satellite image of the earth at night showing the extent of artificial lighting – were the most widely used photograph throughout various talks and rightly so – it serves to show just what an impact we have on the natural environment. Photo copyright: NASA

Most bat workers will know of research, such as Emma Stone‘s work in Bristol, which shows that slower flying species such as horseshoe, long-eared and myotis bats tend to avoid light and that lighting their commuting routes can cause severance. Much of the interesting new research at the symposium came from Holland; Herman Limpens looked at whether there are more ‘bat friendly’ lighting spectra and found that amber light caused much less avoidance than white or green light on bats commuting along a dark canal corridor. This was also borne out in analysis of Irish monitoring surveys which found much lower levels of Daubenton’s activity at lit waterway locations. Fiona Matthews from Exeter University put paired static detectors in light and dark locations in a 2km radius around greater horseshoe roosts and found much higher activity levels were recorded in the dark.

Bats can be disturbed when roost entrances are lit: the Life at Night project changed the lighting regimes of churches in Slovenia and achieved significant improvements in both emergence time – horseshoe bats left earlier – and consistency – bats left over a much shorter time period. Kamiel Spoelstra from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology found pipistrelle occupancy rates of boxes to be significantly reduced under white and red light treatments compared with dark.

ddd — The ubiquitous Illuminated Church – the subject of the Life at Night talk (photograph from the Life at Night Project Website http://www.lifeatnight.si/en/)

But the picture is not that simple; some species such as pipistrelles and Leisler’s are actually attracted to streetlight. Their speed makes them less susceptible to predators and anybody who has undertaken moth trapping will know that moths gather at light sources, especially attracted to shorter wavelength and UV light. A fascinating talk by Andrew Wakefield from the University of Bristol added a further dimension to this – he found that the avoidance behaviour usually exhibited by moths in response to a bat echolocation call – a change of course or a power-dive where they drop to the ground – is reduced by 60% under lit conditions making them a much easier prey for bats.

The impact of lighting upon invertebrates was widely discussed; for example it was found that larger moths with larger eyes are most attracted to shorter wavelength light and they are drawn in at 6x levels compared with longer wavelength light. This attraction is well known but the implications are rarely considered; Matt Shardlow of Buglife estimated that a third of interactions between moths and light sources would prove fatal to the insects through exhaustion, collision, heat or predation.

The influence which lighting can have upon the relationships between species was a trend which came out in a number of the talks – the impact then can be considered positive or negative, depending upon your perspective. Parasitoid rates on moth eggs were much higher under lit conditions as the diurnal parasitoid gains the advantage. Redshank increase their foraging in lit areas, favouring the redshank (perhaps?). Similarly, a Leisler’s bat can forage more efficiently, but to the detriment of the moths which are preyed upon. Lighting at night disturbs and disrupts the natural rhythms, dynamics and ecological signals.

A peacock butterfly seeking out a dark place to hibernate.

One of the last talks of the symposium was from Kate Harrington who found evidence for in-combination effects of artificial light and artificial noise on bats – as the two are so often associated such as from traffic along well-lit roads, the potential for this to modify the natural environment more severely is significant.

Several talks discussed the importance of good design in lighting schemes for new developments – light only where it is required, light as low as required and design cut-offs and cowls to avoid unwanted light-spill onto surrounding habitats. The project along the Thames at Richmond is an excellent example of this – this video shows how the lights respond to pedestrians so that they feel they are walking in a pool of lights whilst all around remains dark. The importance of maintaining dark corridors was also an important part of the London 2012 park design.

The copper beech outside the Guildhall on the High Street in Grantham showing the extent to which lighting is a normal and accepted component of our villages, towns and cities.

But new designs are only going to reduce future problems – as I walked back from Grantham station after the conference I was shocked to see the level of light-spill onto hedges, trees, the River Witham and other suitable foraging and commuting habitat. I had never appreciated how much of an effect our lighting of the environment would have upon the species we share it with. BCT will be putting up the videos of the talks and presentations in due course so keep an eye out for the news of their arrival!