I’m a Wildlife & Conservation student at the University of Salford currently on placement with The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside.

Over the summer months, I’ve been working with The Lancashire Wildlife Trust to lead a pilot scheme collecting bat data for the Greater Manchester area. The pilot tests the use of ‘AudioMoth’ bioacoustic recording devices to collect data from the field remotely.

At present, there is a gap in our bat data records for Greater Manchester. This is mainly a result of a lack of resources and time.

Bat species records are essential for planning where to focus conservation efforts for bats, which have specific habitat requirements due to their unique ecology, and for creating evidence-based, appropriate land management plans.

The pilot’s aim is to help start to fill this gap in the data, as well as assess the advantages and disadvantages; and viability of using bioacoustic recording to monitor bats across sites where The Lancashire Wildlife Trust and others are undertaking conservation activity. Using remote bioacoustic recording devices to record bat sound could improve the ability to generate more data more consistently, compared to traditional surveys.

During the pilot, five AudioMoth recorders were sited in 14 green spaces such as Local Nature Reserves (LNRs) and Sites of Biological Interest (SBIs) for 3-5 nights at each location. As well as focusing surveys on sites that The Lancashire Wildlife Trust owns, such as Moston Fairway, we included a series of sites owned by partners whom The Trust is undertaking work with including Manchester City Council, Bury Council, and the Land Trust.

The clever AudioMoth devices allowed us to configure them using an app so we could switch them on at certain times when bats are active, and only record above certain frequencies at which bats emit their ultrasonic echolocation and social calls. This helped to avoid capturing lots of other night sounds such as traffic and other animal noises.

Sound recordings collected through the summer are now ready for analysis. As part of my pilot I will be working with the wider team to analyse recordings using software which provides information such as spectrograms to help identify bat calls. We will also be testing the viability and effectiveness of software programmes to suggest a species auto-ID. During the pilot these auto-ID's will be manually checked.

The chance this pilot gives us to learn more about UK bats is exciting. Bats account for a quarter of mammal species in the UK, and they are fascinating, being the only mammals with true powered flight. They are uniquely adapted to the ecosystems in which they live. Some are crucial indicator species meaning that their presence (and abundance) or absence can signify the health of these ecosystems. This is because bats are sensitive to changes in the environment and changes to their insect prey populations.

You can help bats at home by installing a bat box or by gardening for wildlife to encourage bats to visit your garden. Take a look at our fantastic Stars of the Night booklet to find out more about bats and how you can help them!

We will feed back later in the year about what bats we recorded across the summer so keep an eye out for updates!