CERCA's Bat Project Operational
You may recall the brief introduction by Bill Heath to CERCA's latest, very exciting project on bat research, as part of our "citizen science" program published on our website.
For those of you not familiar with the definition of citizen science: it is the collection, processing and analysis of data relating to nature and our environment, involving members of the general public without special qualifications in scientific research. It is a wonderful tool in helping to understand issues that demand data collection on a vast scale providing professional scientists with a large data volume, which would be too difficult and time-consuming to collect by one single person.
Why get involved? With our project we would like to find answers to area- and habitat-specific species diversity and their spatial distribution over a larger area. Of special interest to us is bat activity in the estuary. We may expect high bat activity in salt marshes and above related water bodies, a reflection of abundant prey species such as mosquitoes in these areas. We also want to compare different habitat types and ecosystems within the Cowichan/Koksilah watershed and beyond by relating bat species diversity and relative abundance as indicators to ecosystem health. Of special interest are sites in the estuary suffering from light pollution, such as the Western Forest Products Mill site and the Westcan Terminal, which attract aerial insects to their detriment. Insects attracted to light sources are either eaten by bats, known to specialize on insect life around light sources, or dying of sheer exhaustion by circling lights until their death.
Interested in Technical Details? Modern technology has supplied us with extraordinary tools to record bat activity and identify species. Bat echolocation calls are ultrasonic and out of the range of human hearing. The Echo Meter Touch (EMT) module combines an ultrasonic microphone and digitizes circuitry to capture the sounds and send them to the EMT app where they are transformed into audio that you can hear and an interactive spectrogram to visualize the sounds. An amazing technical achievement and a tool easy to operate!
Meanwhile we have purchased two Touch 2 PRO Ultrasonic Modules, produced specifically for iOS cell phones or i-pads with a free app available from the Apple store, and for Android cell phones with an app available from Google play. Simply plug the Echo meter into your phone and it automatically connects with the downloaded app. The app allows you to listen to, record, and automatically identify bats by their ultrasonic echolocation calls. The modules and corresponding app reveal the silent and often times invisible world of bats, providing outdoor enthusiasts, citizen scientists, and researchers an affordable and informative way to interact with these nocturnal species.
Bat calls are detected and enter the Module through an integrated acoustical horn, engineered to reduce unwanted echoes. The horn efficiently directs the bat sound into the Module’s ultra-quiet microphone element which captures frequencies of up to 192 kHz.
The Touch 2 PRO Ultrasonic module and app can be used anywhere without internet access, unless you want to combine it with a GPS location finder, Google maps, or Wikipedia for more information on identified species. The recordings stored on your cell phone can easily be down-loaded on your PC or laptop for further data processing.
Now get started To achieve consistency of data to be collected and to facilitate their processing, we have prepared a template to be filled in for recordings to be taken by members and others interested in borrowing one of the units. If you are interested in participating and supporting this important project, you may borrow the appropriate device from Bill, the keeper of the iOS unit, or me for the Android users, against a small donation of $10 to $20 if you want to keep the unit for a full week. When you pick up the unit either Bill or I will familiarize you with the operation. We also will supply you with hard copies of the templates if you are unable to print them from the attachment to this mail. Please feel free to use it at any location you fancy, but please don't forget to describe the location on the template for later geo-referencing if you can't get GPS coordinates from your phone.
Bill Heath can be reached by e-mail or phone at: billh895@gmail.com or phone: 250-2188206
You have my e-mail address. My phone number is 250 748-4878
The first time we tried one of the units at Bill's place at Stoney Hill. How exciting to be able to listen to the bat voices and the unit telling you which species the voices belong to! Beate and I tried it at our place and were amazed to encounter six different species. The best time for recording with the highest bat activity is in the evening about half an hour after sunset and onwards --presumably until they have their fill! Don't waste your time on rainy days!
Below is a completed template from a one-hour recording on June 1 at our place on Khenipsen road. It was a great adventure to be repeated periodically, especially when the bat pups become mobile. Have fun and try it out! You will not regret it.
Which Species? The following table lists the bat species known to North America and the 15 species recorded for BC. Your device will show the acronym for each species identified which you may look up later for the proper name and more detail while transcribing the data using the above described template.
Bat Species of North America Bat species recorded for BC:
Eumops floridanus (Bonneted)
Antrozous pallidus (Pallid)
Eumops perotis (Western mastiff)
Corynorhinus townsendii (Townsend’s big-eared bat)
Eumops underwoodi (Underwood’s bonneted)
Eptesicus fuscus (Big brown)
Lasiurus blossevilli (Western red)
Euderma maculatum (Spotted)
Lasiurus borealis (Eastern red)
Lasionycteris noctivagans (Silver-haired)
Lasiurus ega (Southern yellow)
Lasiurus cinereus (Hoary)
Lasiurus intermedius (Northern yellow)
Macrotus californicus (California leaf-nosed)
Molossus molossus (Pallas’s mastiff)
Myotis californicus (California myotis)
Mormoops megalophylla (Ghost faced)
Myotis ciliolabrum (Western Small-footed)
Myotis austroriparius (Southeastern myotis)
Myotis evotis (Long-eared myotis)
Myotis grisescens (Gray)
Myotis lucifugus (Little brown)
Myotis leibii (Small-footed)
Myotis septentrionalis (Northern long-eared myotis)
Myotis occultus (Arizona myotis)
Myotis thysanodes (Fringed myotis)
Myotis sodalis (Indiana)
Myotis volans (Long-legged myotis)
Myotis velifer (Cave myotis)
Myotis yumanensis (Yuma myotis)
Nycticeius humeralis (Evening)
Nyctinomops femorosaccus (Pocketed free-tailed)
Nyctinomops macrotis (Big free-tailed)
Parastrellus hesperus (Western pipistrelle)
Perimyotis subflavus (Tricolored)
Tadarida brasiliensis (Mexican free-tailed)
Dr. Goetz Schuerholz, Chair CERCA