The Batting Season
“The Batting Season” has nothing to do with cricket. It is the term used by chiropterophiles (bat lovers) to describe the busy summer weeks when bats are out foraging in the warm, insect filled evenings. Such days are so long, bat researchers often won’t get home to sleep until after midnight. This summer in the Catlins, the weather got warm, the bats got flying and people turned out to learn more about their conservation.
Batting Season started with a packed audience on an incredibly hot evening for a screening of the documentary, Battling Extinction, by Sarah Cull-Luketina. The film gives an insight into what is happening across the country to conserve our endangered bat species and educate the public on their very existence. Thanks to Owaka Museum and Forest & Bird for hosting the event and to all those who helped make it happen on the night.
Later, three evening bat walks were well attended by visitors and locals, despite the weather being less than “summery”. The only bat that were detected showed up along the Catlins River. Nevertheless, humans of all ages learned more about them and how to use bat detectors. A few borrowed the detectors and took them home, eager to find out if they had bats flying near their backyards.
Around 20 keen volunteers have been involved in carrying out a series of surveys for long-tailed bats along 8 kilometre routes in the Catlins, Tahakopa and Owaka Valleys. While walking along quiet roads at dusk, volunteers use detectors to listen out for bats foraging or flying past. Two surveys each summer are carried out, which provide baseline data that is compared with data collected in other years. We hope that these annual bat surveys can be taken up throughout New Zealand to enable us to discover more about the distribution of long-tailed bats and any changes in their populations.
Five routes have been surveyed so far with bats on four of them. This is heartening, especially considering there were no official records of bats in the Caitlins a year ago. Every time a bat is heard it is very exciting – these bats are rare and surviving here. We are so lucky! Thank you to all who have given up their evenings to take part.
The Kiwi Conservation Club kids have gone batty, too. The venue for the first session of KCC for 2015 was held recently at Earthlore. The bats & bugs theme was a hit with the youngsters, who searched every nook and lead for the baby (caterpillar) magpie moth. They also made colourful bat masks, listened to the ultrasounds made by raindrops and played games on the lawn. The next session is at Kaka Point on the 1st of March with a celebration of Sea Week as the theme.
