Welcome to the Bernwood Forest Bechstein's Project Blog! Following the discovery of breeding Bechstein's in Buckinghamshire during a National Bat Conservation Trust survey, this subsequent project was conceived by Chris Damant, Jo Hodgkins and Toby Thorne to follow up and find out more. See below for updates on the blog and follow our Twitter feed @bechsteins.

All work is conducted under license from Natural England. All British Bats are protected by law.

The Bernwood Forest Bechstein's Project is a project of the North Bucks Bat Group.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Mass Emergence Count

On Saturday night we were joined by a number of North Bucks Bat Group volunteers, with the aim of conducting emergence counts at all known roots, to give us a clearer idea of the numbers and distribution of the bats.

Having arrived early to make sure we had time to organise teams and take people to their roosts - some of which are harder to find than others - we then settled in to wait for the bats (time that I spent constructing a dry place to sit from surrounding, natural materials - a futile exercise as it was in the wrong place to see bats emerging).

The bats started to appear a little more than half an hour after sun set, with a total of just less than sixty being recorded across several roosts. A secondary success was the identification of the exit hole for one of the roosts, something that had puzzled us on previous visits. All in, the night was a success, and it was great to see so many people coming out to help. That said, the count didn't beat our previous highest emergence count, which was all bats from a single tree, so clearly there is a way to go yet, and more roosts to find.


Thanks to all who took part!