An intro to microbats and monitoring

Event 4pm Saturday 3 October, meet at BBQ shelter in Westgate Park, near the main carpark on Todd Road, Port Melbourne.

Microbats are small, nocturnal, and highly diverse flying mammals that are essential for insect control and ecosystem balance in Australia.  They exhibit remarkable adaptability in roosting and feeding, rely on echolocation for hunting, and require freshwater and conservation to ensure their survival in both natural and urban environments 

Trees were planted in 1999 so are not old enough to have formed natural roosts. As part of our Citizen Science program first we monitor 30 bat boxes for microbats while walking around Westgate Park next to the Yarra river and nearby freshwater lakes. At dusk we check for flying microbats with echo meters to determine what species are present by the different shapes of spectrograms produced.

You will definitely see possums, water birds, fairy wrens; maybe an owl or rakali 

Wear warm clothes, boots and mosquito repellent.

This is a fair weather dependant event.