Hi,
Here's a conundrum. I've been doing bat surveys for the last few weeks, as it is that time of year. Mostly it is quite easy turn up at dusk or dawn (or both, which is quite hard....) wander round with a bat detector and note anything flying. If it's a big roost you can often spot it quickly, if it's smaller more visits will be needed to pin it down. But......
It turns out that there is a commmon specie of bat around here that is comparitively solitary and does not register well on a bat detector. My thought is that the easiest way to spot these would be by photography. They tend to use barns and these often have largeish openings that the bat is most likely to use. The two thoughts I have had are:
1) use a video camera on a tripod and film the opening. That means someone will have to sit and watch the ~2 hours of video.
2) use trap focus to catch individuals.
The two problems I can see with 2) are that it would be hard to get the bat to fly through the focus point as the opening will be large and keeping everything functional over two or so hours.
I did wonder about beam-breaking apparatus for triggering the shutter but I think the large opening will be a problem again.
For both, it will be dark(ish) and probably some form of light enhancement (i.e. night vision scope - flash is not desireable) will be needed.
Anyone done this sort of thing before? Anyone got any ideas?
mike knackered
p.s. apologies to those I owe a personal reply to. I have been at home only to sleep for the past two weeks and have not been keeping up. But tonight I have a session off so I should catch up.
