Taking Part in a Citizen Science Project

—Studying Bats!

Today we’re going to get science-y! Yay! 🤩

Hubby & I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Southwest Summer Solstice Bat Survey, a research project piloted by Bat Conservation International (BCI)! This project is a brand new community science effort to collect bat acoustic data in urban communities in the Southwest US including Tucson, Phoenix, and Albuquerque. 

As participants, we were provided with (loaned) an AudioMoth bat detector, with instructions to deploy it on our property for one week during the week of the Summer Solstice. Hubby & I set up the bat detector on our roof; during the week it was up there the bat detector collected acoustic data on the presence and diversity of bat species in our area. Our data, along with that of other citizen science volunteers, will be used by scientists with the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) to help increase understanding of the status and trends of bats. This Fall, Hubby & I will receive a list of bat species our AudioMoth detected!

Bat Detector (pen, watercolor & colored pencil)

You’ve probably heard that bats use echolocation to navigate their environments and locate their prey (such as flying insects). Here’s a great explanation of bat echolocation from the US National Park Service:

Echolocation

Bats navigate and find insect prey using echolocation. They produce sound waves at frequencies above human hearing, called ultrasound. The sound waves emitted by bats bounce off objects in their environment. Then, the sounds return to the bats' ears, which are finely tuned to recognize their own unique calls.

Our BCI project uses Audiomoth bat detectors to study the bioacoustics of bats.

Bioacoustics

The science of bioacoustics involves studying animals, like bats, through the sounds they make.

Each bat species has a different pattern of echolocation, which can be shown on a spectrogram.

Spectrogram

A graphic representation of sounds that show the frequencies of sound waves over time.

You can see some examples of bat spectrograms on the National Park Service Echolocation page.

🦇 Some Cool Facts about Bats

• Bats are the only mammal capable of true flight.

• The Southwest United States (California, Arizona & New Mexico) has the highest level of bat diversity in the country.

• Bats provide essential ecosystem services including insect pest consumption, plant pollination, and seed dispersal.

• Most bats, on average, can eat up to half their body weight in insects each night, and pregnant or nursing mothers will consume up to 100% of their body weight each night. To put that in human terms, if you weigh 150 pounds, that would equate to eating 75-150 pounds of food each day! 😲 Whoa Nelly!

Vintage 😉 Paula Art

One fun summertime activity in Tucson is watching bats (mostly Mexican free-tailed bats) exit from under the North Campbell Avenue bridge (and other bridges in Tucson). The bats roost under the bridges and exit at dusk, emerging in undulating swirls. Here’s my 2017 art of the bats emerging from the Campbell Avenue bridge.

Bat flight at dusk, Tucson (pen, colored pencil & watercolor pencil)

The Campbell Avenue bridge is just one of four bridges in Tucson with colonies of bats! You can read more about these locations in this Bats in Tucson article.

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