It is honestly difficult to put into words just how incredible this summer was for me. After years of wanting to work with bats, I finally was given the exact opportunity for which I had been hoping. Not only did I get to work with bats, I got experience doing a wide variety of bat-related field work. Spent plenty of nights mist-netting, getting to see, all told, 5 different species of bats (Big Brown bats [most common], Red bats [next most commonly captured species], Northern long-eared bats [third most frequent], Little Brown bats [4th most frequent], and one Indiana). Got plenty of experience removing bats from the nets and handling them while getting necessary data. The other night work of the season consisted of doing roost emergence counts and the active acoustic monitoring. The most exciting roost emergence counts happened at the barn (one of the largest maternal roosts that we found all summer) and a few of the houses. One of the neat things about doing emergence counts at the barn was that sometimes you could hear the bats chattering, in addition to getting to see them fly out in droves. Getting to do acoustic work was one of the things for which I was most excited. It was just incredibly fascinating getting to hear the calls that bats make, and of course, I just love being outside at night, getting to see bats fly around and hearing all of the unique nighttime wildlife noises. The day work of the summer included telemetry, which is always good for a laugh, and setting out/taking down the passive acoustic detectors (described in previous entry).
In addition to getting to do all of this fabulous work with bats, I was also able to get experience assisting with geese banding, wood duck banding, and tracking wood turtles with the turtle interns (so much easier [typically] than tracking bats). I had been hoping to get experience analyzing the acoustic data but due to the hecticness of the summer, it was never a possibility. That was about the only thing I did not get to do this summer, so all things considered I feel incredibly lucky.
The next few months Jenny will spend analyzing the data and documenting the results, comparing our data this year to the data collected in previous years (particularly in the years prior to WNS). However, just from preliminarily observing the data, it certainly appears that, as would be predicted, WNS has certainly taken its toll on the bats that typically spend their summers at Great Swamp. Whereas in the years prior to the occurrence of WNS Little browns were the most frequently captured bats on the refuge, this year we only caught 3 all summer. :( Similarly, Indiana bats were captured quite frequently prior to white nose but now, we only caught 1. On the flip-side, big browns were captured in much higher numbers this summer than in previous summers. This could be because they have not been affected by WNS as much as those other species, and so they seem to be moving in to areas that used to be occupied by Little Browns and Indianas. This same data was reflected in the preliminary observation of the acoustic data gathered over this summer. Most of the calls recorded seem to be from big browns, rather than the Myotis species. It will be interesting to see what conclusions are reached after all the data has been fully analyzed. Overall, certainly a very interesting summer with a lot of useful data collected.
Not only was I doing work that I loved, I was blessed enough to be doing it with a group of really great people. We all got along well, both on the job and off, and that is about all you can ask for. We worked well together, but also had a blast while working. Shout outs must go to Jenny, Abby, Sarah and Miles for being just about the greatest field crew anyone could hope for. See below for a nice photo shoot we did on one of our last days. I will certainly miss these folks. Thanks for all the great memories guys; it was a fantastic summer. :)
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| Silly. B-A-T-S, BATS! :) |
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