Be on the Bat Watch

• May. 18 by zara bokhari (0)

Birmingham Parks are now working as project partners with Opal West Midlands which aims to bring science alive for local people by investigating just how well wildlife is doing in the city and what improvements can be made including the neighborhood for bats project.

The neighbourhood bats project aims to asses the current quality/habitat available to the bat committee and in particular will look at factors influencing the usage of ponds across the west midlands area by bats.

What you can do to help the project gain the answers they need to these questions is to survey the selected areas. The surveying will of course take place at dusk and each volunteer will be given a bat detector to listen to their calls and to observe their flight behavior.

You may be wondering how observing bats has any reflection on the quality of wildlife in the area, but research shows that bats are the ideal animal to judge this as they use a variety of habitats, the mere presence of them shows a healthy environment.

Adam bates Community scientist for the West Midlands commented:

”I too will be studying the how the distribution of green areas in Birmingham influences the and type of species that live and nest there, this project will also require the help of a large number of volunteers if its to be successful”.

So to start your bat watch this summer or to take part in any of the projects have a look at the Birmingham Bat Group events calendar!