What we do once we catch a bat

Welcome Carter! We're naming the bats in alphabetical order.

We did a better job photodocumenting Carter than we did with Bernie. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring our camera that night, but Kerry had her camera so these are all from hers. I hope you enjoy reading about what we do when we catch a bat!

At 11:45 Kerry and I were both sitting at the net for the last watch shift. We heard a bat (using a bat detector) flying down the road and the sound suddenly changed to buzzing as if a large mosquito was hovering in front of the bat detector. Kerry went to check the net and lo and behold- there he was, a little lump in the mist net about 7 m above the ground. We caught Bernie at approximately the same height.

As we lowered the net, the buzzing started again on the bat detector, so then we knew that noise was coming from him. We didn't hear this from Bernie.


We lowered the net and Kerry easily removed him. He wasn't nearly as tangled as Bernie was.


We put him in a little cloth bag in the ute (pickup truck) while we took down the mist net. We also use the bag to weigh him (I forgot to take pictures of this). Then we measure his forearm length (shown above).


Next we trace around one wing. This is pretty difficult, but the area and aspect of the wing can tell the speed and maneuverablility their flight.


Bats can be sexed externally. Here's a picture of his boy bits.


Age (juvenile or adult) is determined by shining a light through the wing membrane and seeing how much cartilage is present. Carter is an adult.

Next we put a tiny band on his wing. It isn't actually a ring so the ends lie along the wing membrane on either side.

Then we have to trim fur from a spot on the back for the radio transmitter. The trimmed fur is kept for later analysis.


Once the transmitter has been securely glued on, he's pretty much ready to go. We were hoping to collect a fecal sample from him for diet analysis, but he didn't produce. Before he could fly off, we had to warm him up. Kerry put him inside her shirt for a few minutes. I got to release him by holding him in my hand up in the air. He decided to climb up my jacket right before taking off.

We managed to track him for about 2 hours, until 4:30 am. This evening we'll hopefully find his roost and track his foraging!

Carrie