Foulridge Survey May 5th 2010

After a cold start to the 2010 survey season at Rowley Lake in April, we headed to Foulridge on the 5th May to see what we could find.

A warm evening with good cloud cover resulted in some great results with a commuting route being identified between a known Common Pipistrelle roost close to the canal and the Lower Foulridge reservoir.

Lower Foulridge Reservoir proved a hot spot of bat activity with both Common and Soprano Pipistrelles, Noctule, Daubenton’s and at least one other Myotis species being recorded.

Update

The evening of May 12th saw myself and Ian head back to Foulridge for a second attempt at mapping activity  thanks to a corrupted SD card losing all the previous weeks survey data.

Starting temperature for the Survey was 5C and combined with a clear sky was far from ideal, with temperature dropping quickly at sunset.

As we staked out the church hoping for an emergence from an obvious roost site we noted a steady stream of Common Pipistrelle from a nearby house. Having headed down to the reservoir following along the common Pip commuting route we found a second stream of Soprano Pips heading in along the footpath from the nearby housing estate.

Once more we recorded Daubenton’s and Noctule feeding over the water but added Brown Long Eared (feeding along the shoreline scrub) and Natterer’s to the list.

Heading along the hedgelined road back to the Canal Wharf a possible Whiskered/Brandt’s was recorded.

So six possibly seven species recorded on a poor survey night. Foulridge is going to see a repeat visit later in the year!