Gould Ecology regularly conduct bat surveys throughout Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and beyond. Please contact us to discuss the requirements for your project.
Bat Surveys are required where a project has the potential to disturb bats or their roosts. As bats regularly roost in buildings, then building alteration work often requires a bat survey. In addition, bats may also use old trees, tunnels, bridges and other structures.
Projects which might affect bats moving about the countryside may require a different type of survey (bat activity / transect surveys) – examples include wnd turbines, new road schemes or larger developments affecting good bat habitats.
A building bat survey is often a multi-stage process – the amount of work required, being dependent on the complexity of the site and its likely use by bats.
The initial stage of bat survey is often an inspection survey, where the building or other potential roosting site is subject to a visual inspection and search for signs of bat occupancy. This survey can be conducted at any time of year, but is often combined with other emergence or activity surveys.
Usually, additional surveys utilising ultrasonic bat detectors and recording equipment are required, which can only be conducted within the active season (May to September, with at least one visit within the core breeding season of June – August).
Evening emergence surveys are carried out just after sunset, and surveyors monitor a building, or potential roost sites, for bats emerging from their roosts. Dawn surveys are carried out before sunrise and bats returning to roosting sites are monitored. Often bats swarm or make several flight passes before returning to a roost, often making them easier to detect than in the evening.
Remote monitoring is a useful method of gaining additional information on a site, whereby a bat detector is left at a site and records all bat activity over a set period of time.
Transect surveys are used to gain information on bat activity within an area of land – especially for detecting key foraging areas or commuting routes. Surveyors walk a pre-determined route within the site, recording bat activity.