Hi Folks,

Well, it has to be said that last night we rather messed up! Yesterday I commented that we try to avoid trapping when it’s actually raining because it reduces the catch rate. So last night, we were all anxiously watching the sky, as some big grey clouds loomed on the horizon at about 5.20 pm. The trick is to predict if it’s going to rain during the bats’ peak flying period, about 6.30-8 pm. So the winds picked up, and it looked really threatening, and we have to make a decision by 5.30 pm in order for there to be time to get into the forest and take down the traps (remember they are set during the day, so they were already in position). To cut along story short, we left the traps open when we should have shut them, because it started to rain about 6 pm and didn’t really ease off until 7.30 pm. So right in the middle of the main activity peak. There wasn’t a huge amount of rain, just 0.8 cubic cm, but it was at the exact wrong time. Doh!

So the traps set last night were KL0299, KL0301, KL0303, KL0305, KL0307, KL0309, KL0457, KL0459, KL0463, KL0465, KL0467 and KL 0469. Here are the data: