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batworker.bsky.social
Bat ecologist working in the North of England. Ex Museum Curator. Researching use of caves, mines and lime kilns by bats in the Forest of Bowland and Yorkshire Dales National Park.
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Just a few more days to apply for a PhD with me! Use new technologies to study movement and ecology of serotine bats in UK. Evidence can guide future rabies control strategies, helping bats and people. Click on project 'Understanding transmission..' here: www.surrey.ac.uk/bbsrc-wessex... #PhD #bats

Understanding the Principles and Techniques of Recording Bats is our next talk via zoom on the 19th March 7.30pm-9.30pm. Martyn Cooke will be providing valuable advice on how to improve your recording techniques for better quality recordings when surveying for bats. www.kentbatgroup.org.uk/events

In the face of climate change, the value of woodlands is going to continue to grow. On 27th Feb Simeon Johnson @batconservation.bsky.social joins us to explore how bats use woodlands, Bechstein’s bat ecology & the goals of the “Connecting People & Landscapes in a changing climate” (CPL)” project.

looking for a good scientific read? This paper is out today and shows how much energy male bats can save by living in groups. Great for buffering environmental unexpectedness! Pic by Rene J doi.org/10.1242/jeb.... @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @jexpbiol.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de

1 week left to apply to do a PhD with me & APHA on the Virome of British #bats 🦇🧬🦠 ⚠️⚠️⚠️ #OneHealth

Hibernating 🦇 bats are getting hungry. Moth wings everywhere and only a couple of Herald Moths remain in this cave. Natterer’s and Daubenton’s bats present, and likely to see an influx now the weather has warmed…

Definitely drier underground today.

🦇New blog in our new location - we are now on Substack! Thank you to Nightwatch Champion, Tajinder, for writing about what it was like to go to our National Bat Conference 2024: batconservationtrust.substack.com . The #NatBatConf 2025 will be on 5-7 September at Durham University - save the date!

Ticking off more potential 🦇 hibernation and swarming sites before the weather warms up.

@BatLifeEurope hosts Kate McAney, VWT’s Ireland Mammal Programme Manager, for an informative webinar on conserving lesser horseshoe bats in Ireland. Learn about innovative strategies used by VWT+others to protect this rare bat. Date: 17 February 2025 Time 18:30 GMT Register tinyurl.com/2r5kht26

No change between @batconservation.bsky.social 🦇 hibernation surveys. Deep torpor above the 500m contour.

NEW MSc POSITION! We're starting a new study system on eastern small footed bats in Ontario. Please share widely and/or apply if you're interested in foraging ecology, bats, and conservation! Link to application is here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

STOP Splat the Bat! Here is some (serious) international guidance I helped with, on preventing collisions of bats on roads and railways. Step 1 . Avoid woodlands and other places with loads of bats. 🦇🦤 #HS2 #batshed @craigbennett3.bsky.social www.eurobats.org/sites/defaul...

Pre Proof - Exposure Assessment of Metals in Cave-Dwelling Bats: Worldwide Relevance of Local Knowledge 🦇 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🦇 New acoustic method to quantify cave-dwelling bats. 📈 By enhancing the Tadarida classifier with local recordings, researchers achieved up to 98% accuracy. This first local use confirms that quantitative bat assessments are feasible with minimal effort, even in data-poor regions. #bioacoustics

Hey 🦇 people / conservation geneticists: If a 3 (up to 6) year postdoc in a quiet college town on the Baltic coast is sounding pretty good right about now, the Kerth lab is looking for you! (ad only in German unfortunately, but the group is int'l!) Happy to answer questions, deadline: Feb 10th!

Time for some proof of concept testing. Powerbank with “keep alive” circuit fitted to USB cables to run the 🦇 PippyG detector for extended periods. Need to work out how long it will run for now. Thanks to @ramoneskaraoke.bsky.social for the advice.

Happy to report that our work on immune system adaptations in bats is now out in @nature.com 🦇🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41... @ariadnamorales.bsky.social @batresearch.bsky.social @virology.bsky.social @DGKontopoulos.ecoevo.social.ap.brid.gy @sgn.one @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social Read more ...

Another successful @batconservation.bsky.social hibernation survey carried out. Higher numbers of 🦇 bats than last year above the 500m contour. #bats #chiroptera #research #conservation #ecology #hibernation

Serotine. One of my favourite #bats! I have a PhD available, using new methods to find serotine roosts and understand movement patterns. Will help to develop a rabies vaccination strategy: a priority for people and bats! Pls share! www.surrey.ac.uk/bbsrc-wessex... @batconservation.bsky.social 🦤🌍🦇

Alternative survey methods are needed when you encounter part of a 🦇 hibernation site too dodgy to climb. Extendable pole mounted GoPro and light for the win!

🦇 A new episode of our #podcast #BatChat is coming on Wednesday. Do catch up with this season's episodes in your favourite platform or here: https://buff.ly/4jxFbsD . Wonderful to see so many people enjoying our last episode on Buzzsprout alone! #NaturePodcast

🦇 Hibernation paper - Winter is (not) coming: Acoustic monitoring and temperature variation across important bat hibernacula bdj.pensoft.net/article/1418...

Unbelievably exciting news, a Greater mouse-eared bat has been found during an #NBMP hibernation survey in Dover! This is the first record of this species in Kent since 1985. Well done Claire and huge thanks to @fionamathews.bsky.social and Dr John Puckett for helping to confirm ID

FieldworkThursday - revisit to an old study site. Nice to see a Brown Long Eared bat actually in a hibernation site, they’ve been missing from the last few we’ve been checking.

Slow post here at the moment, but it’s finally arrived 👌 Time to make a brew and dive in…@batman-shipman.bsky.social

Where better to visit on a grey depressing day, than the lime kiln that kicked off 10+ years of research into bat swarming and hibernation #bat 🦇

Online tickets for BritBats 2025 are available until 5pm on Thursday 23rd Jan! 🦇 Why not grab a last-minute spot? We have a fantastic programme of speakers, posters, competitions - plus a dedicated conference app 📱 More info at www.britbats.com

🦇 Bat Record Keeping Webinar on Mon 24 Feb, 1pm-2pm. Join the Connecting People and Landscapes team to explore what bat records to keep, how to collect them and why these records are invaluable to citizen science. FREE but booking needed: www.tickettailor.com/events/bctev... 📷(c) Dani Smith

Just seen the new Conservation Evidence Toolkit and thought it was worth a share. #conservation #ecology #biodiversity A guide to a collection of tools and resources for embedding evidence in conservation and improving practice. Download the tool for free here: tinyurl.com/CEevidencetool

If there's any bat folks on here using pippyg as a static detector, please reflash with this new binary (link in video description) and note the changed flash patterns. www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6d6...

PhD Alert! ⚠️⚠️ Come to do a PhD with me @universityofexeter.bsky.social and Animal and Plant Health Agency on 'Virome of British bats: A One Health approach to understanding disease emergence and environmental health'. Application deadline 28 Feb. #bats #zoonoses 🦇🦠 www.surrey.ac.uk/bbsrc-wessex...

Anyone using a pippyg, or a pipistrelle as a static detector, please try this firmware and report back. drive.google.com/file/d/1f5--...

Four sites surveyed today. No bats present, just us and the Cave Spiders.

Ever wondered how to capture the details of a #bat skull? 📸🦇 Here's how I do it! 📢Museum collections can be very important in today's research (taxonomy, systematis & bat conservation) #macrophotography #museum #skull #BatConservation #taxonomy

Got part of a bat 🦇 hibernation site we can’t get into. Time for a remote access tool to assess bat potential 🥴

What is it about remote high hibernation sites that Brandt’s bats seem to prefer?

📢 New publication!! 📢 🦇🍎🦇 We study #Bats in Asturian apple orchards, evaluating how different components of bat assemblages differentially respond to orchard and landscape features