Using Your Ears - Swansea, in-person workshop with practical (NBMP)

Want to develop your bat identification skills? Interested in understanding bat sounds?

In the classroom learn to identify four bat species by sound, then practice your skills outside at dusk!

We will break bat sounds into four elements: repetition rate, rhythm, tonal quality, and pitch. You will learn how and why these elements vary between different species, and how to find the "peak frequency" using a heterodyne bat detector. You will listen to pipistrelles, noctule, serotine and Daubenton's bats to illustrate a range of different bat sounds to train your "sonic memory".

We will also give you an overview of the National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) and we encourage you to take part in the Field Survey and/or Waterway Survey.

We will start starts indoors  at 7pm, with a practical session outside from dusk which will finish about 10.30pm (see last bus below). 

This is a good next step for those who have attended "Discover Your Local Bats" (beginners level) and 'Waterside Echoes' (Level 1) though no prior knowledge is needed.

Please bring a heterodyne detector and head torch if you have these, and wear shoes/boots and clothing suitable for wearing outside in the evening.

This workshop will be led by Diana Clark who has worked as a consultant ecologist for over twenty years and runs her own consultancy practice (http://www.koruecologyassociates.co.uk/). She is an active member of Glamorgan Bat Group. Diana is happiest outdoors and can often be seen looking for otter spraint under bridges, dormice in the woods and bats anywhere she can find them.

Venue 

St Hilary's Church Hall, 481A Gower Road, Killay, Swansea SA2 7DZ

By bus: according to traveline.cymru, bus no.116 leaves Swansea Bus Station at 18.04, or Singleton Campus at 18.43 (get off at Goetre Fawr Road opposite medical centre). The last bus into central Swansea (Bus Station) is No.20 which leaves Killay (by chiropractor) at 21.50.  

Free parking, disabled access, and toilets available at the venue. 

Everyone is welcome!

Bat Conservation Trust wants everyone to have opportunities to connect with bats and nature and get involved with conservation. We recognise that people of colour and racially and ethnically minoritised groups are particularly under-represented in the conservation sector. If this is relevant to you, please book with the concessionary rate below.

Standard ticket: £16. Concessions: Bat Group and BCT members - £10, current NBMP volunteers - £8, people from under-represented groups, students and unwaged - £4.

Additional resource

Optional “Identifying Bats in Flight” booklet can be ordered (£5/£2.50 concession), to arrive by post. This is a useful reference booklet (28 pages) for beginners which provides an introduction to different types of bat detectors and patterns of sound made by bats in the field.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with us at jpuzey@bats.org.uk.

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