I wildlife and I like gadgets, so what could be better than combining the two? So I bought a new bat detector recently to cheer myself up and it works a treat!

I bought an Echo Meter Touch 2, which slots into the bottom of my iPhone, along with a couple of books about British and European bats. The big difference between the new gadget and my old bat detector is that it automatically recognises the type of bat producing the echolocation calls it records. This enables a novice (basically) like me to easily note the bats in an area without the need to gain specialist knowledge around calls and call frequencies, which will take a some time to develop.

However, it has spurred me on to learn more about bats and to spend more time outside at dusk and into the night to see and hear them. It is now quite a few years since I went out with a couple of friends, who are much more knowledgable than me, to do some Daubenton’s surveys along a nearby river. I loved doing the surveys and seriously considered getting my own survey spot and maybe I should do actually do it this time – but first, I think I need to do more reading around the subject and testing out my new kit.

Over the first two nights of using the detector, I was amazed to recorded four species of bat in our garden, both Common and Soprano Pipistrelle and Brown Long-eared and Noctule. I’ve never recorded Soprano Pipistrelle or Noctule before, which was particularly pleasing, but simply to record four species at all was great. I’m planning to take a few nocturnal walks around the village soon to see what else I can pick up and I also want to find a nice stretch of water to see if I can find some Daubenton’s too.

Unfortunately, on searching the Bat Conservation Trust’s website, there doesn’t appear to be a Northamptonshire bat group but I’m hoping there may be some opportunities to undertake bat surveys in the surrounding area once I’ve gained some more knowledge and skills.