The first Brue Valley Big Bat Survey took place in 2013 and has run for four years. The survey assessed bat activity over specified transect routes with predefined stops and walk sections. Seventeen routes were defined in 2013 but only a selection of these have been surveyed each year (fifteen transects in 2013, nine transects in 2014, eleven transects in 2015 and ten in 2016 ); the reasons for this are partly to ensure a minimum of three surveyors per team and partly to increase coverage of the survey area. It will be running for the final time in 2017.
Organised by the Somerset Bat Group with help from SERC, the survey depended on the enthusiasm and expertise of local volunteers devoting their time to walk transects, mapping and describing the results and spending hours analysing the sound recordings. This has given an opportunity to build on the findings of the previous surveys and provide more data of a kind that could not be recorded in any other way.
The reports for each of the surveys can be found below:-
2015 Brue Valley Big Bat Survey
