Our joint monitoring project with Moors For the Future Partnership has monitored three sites over the summer of 2022. Arnfield Moor was re-visited following the survey during September 2021 when six species were recorded. There was no further sign of the barbastelle bat - not unexpected but worth a try!
The next two survey sites were on Bleaklow, both in 1 km squares with no previous records. At the Etherow rain gauge on the northern side, at an altitude of 451 metres, we recorded just a few common pipistrelle passes. Wind whistling through the supporting wires for the rain gauge generated ultrasonic sounds on several nights, resulting in thousands of noise files which had to be filtered out before the data could be analysed.
At Upper North Grain on the southern side of Bleaklow, a weather station and water table monitoring site at an altitude of 502 metres, we recorded common pipistrelle, noctule and Myotis bats. Once again, as at several previous sites, feeding buzzes were recorded providing further evidence that bats are using the restored moorland habitat as a foraging resource and not merely passing over.
That brings the number of sites surveyed over the course of the project to 15, the majority in squares with no previous bat records. Shirley Thompson, editor of the Young Bat Worker, asked me to write a short article about the project which appeared in the summer edition of the magazine.
Alan Roe
Derbyshire Bat Group Recorder
