Hi
I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. First time poster.......
I’m very much an enthusiastic amateur who is trying to improve the biodiversity of some semi-ancient woodland in SE England.
I have some specific questions re: bat recording with Audiomoth and the analysis of the data:
The Project:
To record bats before and after I clear a Woodland ride based on the fact that bats tend to like to travel along them. The current woodland has a lot of canopy and i would like to find out the effect on bats when large rides are created.
I’ve set up my Audiomoth at the beginning of the area where the ride will meet the glade (work to start this autumn) - and mounted on approx 2m post. I’ve read various reports of not putting them in trees as they can cause issues. I will record for 4 nights this week and then repeat at the same location, same time of year in the next two seasons.
My question is whether there are any do’s and don’ts with regards recording bats in woodland.
Lastly.....how do I analyse the data that I collect. Is there anyone I can send the data to or is it something I can do?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Johnnie
29 June 2020 5:59pm
For analyzing data, there are a number of softwares (open-source and proprietary) you can use. Raven (from Cornell Lab of Ornithology) has a free RavenLite and RavenPro, which does cost money but doesn't break the bank. Audacity is free and very user-friendly but has limited functionality depending on what you want to do in terms of measurements and variable extraction. Praat is another free acoustic analysis software that has a ton of complex functionalities but is not quite as user-friendly and targeted at researchers more than hobbyists (in my opinion). Arbimon is another free acoustic analysis software from Sieve Analytics. Also perhaps check out the Bat Detective team and BATLOGGER's BatExplorer software which has free + paid-for versions. There are a ton of resources out there on analyzing sounds and using machine learning to pick out target species/sounds/etc. I've found it's mostly assessing which platform/software/etc is the best fit for your specific project.
29 June 2020 8:00pm
Thank you. That's a real help. I've collected my data, so here goes for the analysis!
14 July 2020 5:20pm
Hi Carlos
Thank you for your message. I would quite like to send you some files. What's the best email address to send them to?
Thanks
Johnnie
Carly Batist