Wales Bat Worker's Day
The Wales Bat Worker's Day is for anyone with an interest in bats! It is a good way to meet others who are involved in bats work, professional and voluntary. It’s also a chance to develop knowledge and skills that can support bat conservation.
This year’s event is on Saturday 4th November 2023 at the Centre for Alternative Technologies near Machynlleth, Powys.
Tickets for Wales Bat Workers Day 2023
Thanks to the sponsors of this event: Wildlife Acoustics
In person tickets include refreshments and lunch. If you are a member of BCT or a partner bat group tickets are £45, for non-members tickets are £50.
Booking closes on 23rd October.
Virtual tickets include talks and two workshops. If you are a member of BCT or a partner bat group tickets are £25, for non-members tickets are £30.
Booking closes on 30th October.
Wales Bat Workers Day Programme 2023
Updated 02.10.23
Registration from 9am, talks from 10am.
- BCT update – Joe Nunez-Mino, BCT.
- Natur am Byth: stars of the night – Claire Boothby, BCT. Hear about the BCT led project looking to protect a population of lesser horseshoe bats on the Gower peninsula.
- Natur am Byth: barbastelles in Pembrokeshire – Daniel Hargreaves, VWT. Natur am Byth is Wales’ flagship species recovery programme uniting nine environmental NGOs with NRW in the largest ever partnership of its kind in Wales. The Vincent Wildlife Trust are leading on a project to understand and conserve the barbastelle bat in Pembrokeshire
- An example of exemplar Local Planning Authority practices – Andrew Cutts, Denbighshire County Council.
Refreshment break
- Stackpole's bats - Paul Culyer. Paul shares news from Stackpole, an important site for both horseshoe species, that has been closely monitored for many years.
- Gobaith Coetir/Woodland Hope – Nicky Fish & Elliot Bastos, BCT. BCT’s latest project aims to assess the health of Celtic rainforest in North Wales, whilst bridging the gap between local communities and their woodland heritage.
- Gower churches project - Mark Barber, Swansea Council and Glamorgan Bat Group. Welsh Government funded project through Gower AONB team in Swansea Council, working with churches to mitigate bat/bird conflict and undertake nature enhancement works.
Lunch (food provided will be vegetarian and other dietary requirements can be highlighted on the booking form)
Workshop session - please see below under the photograph
Refreshment break
- Natural Resources Wales update – Sam Dyer, NRW.
- Combatting negative COVID press through education: Cardiff Bat Group’s online education project – Jessica Dangerfield, Cardiff Bat Group. A talk on Cardiff Bat Group’s online education project run throughout the COVID lockdowns to combat the negative press received by bats due to the pandemic.
Closing thank yous and raffle draw – approximately 5pm.
During breaks in the programme you could explore this interesting site, looking at the buildings or perhaps taking a stroll around the quarry trail (approx. 20-30 minutes).
Confernce audience in an auditorium
Workshops at the Wales Bat Workers Day 2023
Please note spaces are limited on each workshop and early booking is needed to secure your first choice.
In-person attendees
*Fully booked* You can choose to attend the 2hr ‘Introduction to advanced survey techniques’ workshop.
Run by Jessica Dangerfield and Hal Starkie. This workshop will introduce advanced survey techniques including the use of mist nets, harp traps and the use of acoustic lures. We will cover the theory behind using these different survey techniques; and practice putting up mist nets and harp traps.
Or you can choose two of the following 1hr workshops
One for the first session:
- Entering and downloading your bat records via the Cofnod Online Recording System – Cathy Wuster. Cofnod is the environmental records centre for North Wales. This workshop will give you a chance to practice 1) entering your bat records onto Cofnod’s online recording system, 2) download your records and 3) generate tables for reports from your download. The skills learned can also be applied to other species records. The workshop is of value to anyone working with bats (carers, ecological consultants, roost visitors, volunteers, etc). Please bring your own laptop/tablet to take part in the exercises.
- Visual bat ID for beginners – Sam Dyer. Learn the basics of visual ID along with seeing some dead bat specimens
- Social media – Joe Nunez-Mino, BCT. Social media can play an important part in promoting your organisation or yourself. Apart from presenting information, it can also provide a valuable engagement and education tool by opening conversations with existing and prospective supporters. It can, however, take up a lot of resources unless you are clear about the why and how of using social media as well as making informed decisions about which social media channels to use. This workshop will explore how to use social media sustainably and generate fresh content ideas that are effective.
And one for the second session:
- *Fully booked* Future-proofing horseshoe roosts for climate change – Daniel Hargreaves, VWT. Vincent Wildlife Trust manages a network of bat reserves. Most of the reserves are old buildings and most are maternity roosts. In Wales, the Trust’s reserves include one of the largest known lesser horseshoe bat maternity roosts in western Europe. VWT’s reserves support a substantial proportion of Britian and Irelands horseshoe bat population. The workshop will share VWT’s approach to roost management, demonstrate some of the enhancements and discuss horseshoe bat conservation.
- An Introduction to UK Bat Species Identification Using Sonograms – Paul Howden-Leach, Wildlife Acoustics.
- Advanced sound analysis – Philip Briggs, BCT. This workshop goes beyond the basics of using sound analysis software and looks at the different settings and how they will affect the accuracy of your species identifications. We will go through a set of recommended steps for getting the best results from your sound analysis software and avoiding common pitfalls. This will be demonstrated in Anabat Insight, BatSound and Kaleidoscope, but the principles apply to any software you use. We will finish with tips for species identification and an interactive quiz going through a set of example call sequences, some straightforward, some less so. These files will be shared before the session so that you can have an initial look at them if you wish to, and keep them for your own reference.
Virtual attendees
You will be able to watch and participate in ‘Social media do’s and don’t’s’ and ‘Future-proofing horseshoe roosts for climate change’.
Sponsoring or exhibiting at a BCT event
If you are interested in sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, please contact Naomi Webster, Training and Conferences Manager for details: nwebster@bats.org.uk.
Previous Wales Bat Workers Day 2022
The previous event was online in February 2022, dedicated to Tom McOwat, who sadly passed away. Tom was a pillar of the bat conservation community, his reach extending far beyond Wales and his outstanding achievements have helped shape bat conservation today. The programme included talks on Nathusius’ navigation and Natur am Byth, workshops on project development for bat groups and infra-red surveys, and finished with a discussion session.
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