Big Bat Count Taunton – 26Aug22

Part of Somerset Wildlife Trust’s Great Somerset Wildlife Count the Big Bat Count Taunton is all about inviting people to enter the fascinating world of bats.

It’s your chance to get involved in real-time, night-time monitoring of a variety of bat species across Taunton in this very special pilot event which employs the very latest, cutting-edge bat detecting technology to collect data about what bats we have in one of the county’s biggest urban environments.

On the night everyone booked should meet the car park at SWT HQ:

  • If booked as a group on a satellite survey please meet soon after 7PM
  • If booked as individuals on the guided bat survey walk, please meet just before 7:30PM

Somerset Wildlife Trust, 34 Wellington Road Taunton, TA1 5AW View map

Big Bat Count Taunton 2022

taking part in the guided bat survey walk?

The walk leader will start with a talk about bats at 7:30PM, before leading the group out to start the guided survey walk at 8:15PM.

Taking Part in a Group?

Before the Big bat count night

Once booked onto a big bat count as a group we ask: (download as printable PDF)

  1. At least one adult (hopefully more) from each team should install the iNaturalist app from the Google or Apple App store on their mobile internet-enabled phone.
  2. Open the iNaturalist app and create an iNaturalist account.
  3. Join the “Big Bat Count Taunton 2022” project in the iNaturalist App.
    • On Android phones:
      1. In the iNaturalist App, tap the three-line icon (Hamburger) in the top left of the screen
      2. Select “Projects“
      3. In the Projects screen, tap the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen.
      4. In the “Search projects …” box at the top of the screen type Big Bat Count Taunton 2022
      5. Tap Big Bat Count Taunton 2022 when it appears below the search box
      6. You should see a screen with possibly some bat records in the bottom half. Click the small grey “Join” button to the left just above half way up the screen.
      7. Check this button has changed to “Leave”, this confirms you have successfully joined the group.
      8. To return home tap the top right back arrow, then the three-line icon (Hamburger) in the top left of the screen, and Explore to see local records.
    • On Apple iOS phones:
      1. In the iNaturalist App, tap the green “Projects” button in the bottom right of the screen
      2. In the Projects screen, tap the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen.
      3. In the “Search for projects named …” box at the top of the screen type Big Bat Count Taunton 2022
      4. Tap Big Bat Count Taunton 2022 when it appears below the search box
      5. You should see a screen with possibly some bat records in the bottom half. Click the small grey “Join” button to the left just above half way up the screen.
      6. Check this button has changed to “Leave”, this confirms you have successfully joined the group.
      7. To return home tap the top right back arrow once, then tap Explore at the bottom of the screen to see local records.
  4. Read the safety briefing

On the night preparation

On the night of the count, the teams of people should meet soon after 7PM at SWT HQ to collect two bat detectors per team:

  1. The first detector is an ultrasonic microphone (Echo Meter Touch2 – EMT) attached to a tablet that can record and most importantly automatically identify the bat species it hears.
  2. The second detector (Magenta) is not essential and is a “nice to have”. It can be set to the frequency shown on the tablet and allows participants to listen to the echolocation calls the bat is making in real-time

Each team is then given instructions, a safety briefing and a map showing an area that they requested when booking.

During the preparation, the count leader will make sure that all teams:

  • Are aware of their survey area, and the process to follow
  • Have the required kit and know how to use it
  • Have a copy of the “species lookup for the 15 species of Somerset Bats” laminate.
  • Have received the safety briefing, and have at least one hi-vis “BAT survey” vest per team
  • Are aware all sounds will be recorded, and to avoid creating ultrasound themselves as much as possible. Keys rattling, small change, rustling cagoules, zips .. etc are all common ultrasound sources

taking part in the Big Bat Count

The aim is for each team to start the Big Bat Count of their area near Sunset, and then survey for the next 90 minutes.

Sunset is at 8:11 PM, so counts should start at 8:15 and finish at 9:45PM.

The process each team should follow is: (download as printable PDF)

  • Switch on the tablet by holding the top power “on” button at the top for 5 secs. Swipe up to dismiss the opening Amazon sales screen:
    1. Start the Echo Meter app on the tablet.
    2. Dismiss the location warning.
    3. Plug in the EMT microphone, this is directional so ensure it is always pointing upwards, or towards any bats.
    4. Press the big green round Start button.
    5. Start recording using the round button with a red square in it at the bottom of the screen (bat autoID only works when recording).
    6. If at any time the Echo Meter app freezes during the night, the quickest way to reset is to restart the tablet. Hold down the top power “on” button and select “restart” onscreen. Then follow steps 1-5 above again.
  • Switch on the Magenta bat detector, and set it initially to 45kHz
  • Log into iNaturalist on the internet-enabled phone.
  • Aim to cover as much of the area as you can in the next 90minutes.
  • Always stay in public places, footpaths, parks etc. Never enter private land, even to follow a bat.
  • Ultrasound (sounds beyond our hearing) is very common. From cars, to birds and crickets, ultrasound is everywhere. Hence the EMT device will be recording most of the time, and will often come up with no bat detected, or “No ID”
  • Keep moving around your area until a bat is seen or heard, in real life, or via the detectors. These will usually be rhythmic patterns of sound.
  • Once a bat is seen or heard, stop for a minute to:
    1. Watch and enjoy it!
    2. Watch for AutoID species suggestions from the Echo Meter app. Try to always tap the top suggested species when they appear.
    3. Tune the Magenta detector to the peak frequency shown on the EMT so you can also listen to it.
    4. Record the top listed bat species (only) in the iNaturalist app on the phone:
      • On Android phones:
        1. In the iNaturalist App, tap the three-line icon (Hamburger) in the top left of the screen
        2. Select “New observation” at the bottom of the drop-down list, then tap “No Media”
        3. Type the name of the bat name using the iNat code from the supplied species lookup table into the “What did you see?” box at the top of the screen.
        4. Tap the desired Bat species when that appears below.
          • If the phone does not have an internet connection, the species lookup in iNaturalist will not work, hence type the full species name in iNaturalist into the box manually.
        5. Tap the big green “Tick – Select” button below the bat picture.
        6. On return to the “Edit observation” screen there is no need to select the Project as your observations go into all projects you have joined, if they meet the criteria of the project.
        7. Tap the round green tick button at the bottom of the screen to submit the new observation to the iNaturalist database
      • On Apple iOS phones:
        1. In the iNaturalist App, tap the grey “Observe” button at the bottom middle of the screen.
        2. Select “No Photo” from the menu that slides up from the bottom of the screen.
        3. Start typing the full name of the bat into the “What did you see?” box at the top of the screen using the “name in iNaturalist” from the supplied species lookup table.
        4. Tap the desired Bat species when that appears below.
          • If the phone does not have an internet connection, the species lookup in iNaturalist will not work, hence type the full species name in iNaturalist into the box manually.
        5. On return to the “Details” screen, there is no need to select the Project as your observations go into all the projects you have joined if they meet the criteria of the project.
        6. Tap the green rectangular “share button at the bottom of the screen to submit the new observation to the iNaturalist database
  • After the minute is up move on again.
  • When a different species bat is next heard, or another minute has passed and the same species bat is heard again, stop again for a minute and record the bat species in iNaturalist as above. It may be a new bat, or you may suspect it is a bat you have seen before doing big circles. Either way, it doesn’t matter, just add a new record, then move on again once the minute is up.
  • Within your area, feel free to follow the direction a bat went in, but try not to go over the same ground too much.
  • At 9:45PM, after the 90 minutes are up, switch off the detector and tablet (press and hold the power “on” button, then select “Power off” onscreen.
  • Return to the central base, return all the kit to the bat group count leader, and report if any problems occurred.

The close of the count night

All the groups, and the guided walks, results are available instantly on the iNaturalist map.

Hence the count leader will be able to review and give a debrief talk to include the initial results.

After the count

All the results on the night will be unverified “casual” flight recordings. Some of the species regarded as threatened in iNaturalist may have their locations and time of observation obscured, by moving them to a random point within 10km.

In the days after the count experts from the bat group will be able to review the recordings made on the devices, and for the key bat sightings, upload screenshots and sound files, to allow verification of the species from the recordings obtained by the teams.

These verified records will then be uploaded into iRecord, the dataset used by the Environmental Records Centres.

Big Bat Count Taunton 2022