Moors for the Future Partnership has embarked on a programme of joint monitoring with the Derbyshire Bat Group. This is a first, as the Partnership has never monitored bats within wildlife monitoring programmes.
Derbyshire Bat Group has provided a passive detector, security box, memory cards and batteries. Throughout summer and autumn, the equipment will be on monitoring sites on high moorland and stream valleys. The first site has been set up at The Moorland Centre in Edale by Research and Monitoring Officers, Tom Aspinall, Joe Margetts and Tom Spencer.
Results will supply key information on species distribution in under-recorded areas of Derbyshire – there are particularly limited records of bats within the north-west of the county.
The first results are already in from the first few weeks – and it is good news. Between 29th April and 4th May, the Edale monitoring site recorded Common Pipistrelles and Myotis species. The results are already building a picture in distribution maps, as the only previous Myotis record was a whiskered bat 28 years ago.