[Maine-birds] Re: Bats...or not!

I've been really interested in bats/bat conservation for the last several years and have had the pleasure of working on a few projects in which I surveyed bats with acoustic detectors. With NABat I installed stationary detectors in various locations in the Casco/Naples area and drove transects with a detector affixed to my car. While the data collected in these sorts of projects is no doubt valuable, its collection is not something many citizens would be will take on. This year, however, I started working on a project in partnership with UMaine, Maine IFW, and Maine Audubon that aims to study bats through a citizen science network. I think it shows real promise. 

In this project (BatME), citizen scientists around the state would be supplied with detectors compatible with iOS devices. With these user-friendly detectors in hand, the citizen will have to power to conduct surveys whenever (at sunset) and wherever they wish. Best of all, the associated application has a live feed spectrogram, lowers the echolocating calls of bats to an audible frequency, and has fairly accurate identification software. The calls are recorded and GPS coordinates logged. I've conducted more than a dozen surveys with this detector in various habitat and recorded the calls of six (out of eight) of Maine bat species. Included in these recordings were the echolocating calls of the recently state-listed endangered Little brown bat. I've been really impressed with the detector and have high hopes for the project. We're certainly primed to gain a lot of data on our local bat populations and distributions. We will be working on the logistics of a statewide monitoring project later this year. 

In the meantime, MPBN covered the project last month. I took reporter Susan Sharon out to seek out bats at Mt Apatite in Auburn. We were not disappointed. Click the link below to read the article or give it a listen:

http://news.mpbn.net/post/volunteers-count-bats-maine-effort-save-them

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 10:05:49 PM UTC-4, rob speirs wrote:

Hello Folks,

Sitting on the float tonight watching the full moon rise on the eastern horizon I was struck by the total absence of the familiar squeaks of bats. 

We've always had bats at camp. At dusk we would see them in erratic flight, in front of the porch and over the float on the waterfront. Sometimes we would, to the dismay of many, find them fluttering about inside our camp. 

When we were young there were so many, we could sit quietly on the float with a long handled fishing net, and wait patiently for one of the many bats to come close. With a quick flip of the net, by the most articulate, we would capture a bat. 

They were put into a large glass jugs, with a long diagonal stick and leaves. The jugs were of the kind which we used to carry water from the spring, the wire handles on full jugs practically cutting off our young  fingers, or so it seemed. I'm confident some of you remember those days.The bats were released the next day, unharmed, after camp friends came to ooh and ahh over our treasures.

Tonight, not a squeak, not a sighting.. nothing. Up until 2 years ago we had a bat(s) roosting up under the roof of camp's back porch, their droppings a nuisance to sweep away every morning. As much as we were unhappy about the droppings, we were more unhappy about the absence of bats. White nose fungus is, apparently, the culprit. 

Let's hope this is cyclical and our mosquito eating friends recover. What has been your experience???

Rob 

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