Early on in 2021, Bat Conservation Ireland applied to the Heritage Council for funding to carry out a Citizen Scientist project, which involved Bat Groups around the country.  The aim of this project was to carry out a pilot study to monitor bat activity at 10 different locations around the island of Ireland.  The equipment used for this was a Song Metre Mini, a light weight, affordable recorder, which can conduct species inventory and presence/absence bat surveys.

This piece of equipment is very easy to use and can be monitored remotely via an App, which is free and easy to download.

This project is an extension of current bat monitoring activities, which Bat Conservation Ireland already carries out and gives volunteers in bat groups the opportunity to carry out surveying over the summer period is a Covid-safe way and increase their skills.

The bat groups participating in the project are as follows:

• Dublin
• Galway
• Kildare
• Limerick
• Mayo
• Meath
• Northern Ireland
• Midlands
• Wicklow

An additional location at Kildare was also used.

Once the monitoring period is over, the data will be analyzed for bat activity and a short report will be prepared to outline the findings.  This report will then be used to inform our conservation work and other projects which the bat groups may wish to carry out, to further the work of bat conservation in Ireland.