Chapter 1: What happened to the bat equipment?
Good afternoon. You are very welcome to LiveLine. 51551 is the text number. You can email LiveLine at rte.ie or as always, give me a call on 0818 715 815. And Donna Mullen is on the line. Donna, what happened?
Oh, well, I have a peculiar job, Ciarán. I survey for bats, which is absolutely the best job in the world. It's fantastic. We're out at night time and we've got all our equipment and we have equipment in the car. So we go out just, you know, probably an hour or two after, around sunset. And then we go back at about three in the morning and we stay out until five looking for bats.
And the other night we were out and my son went back to his car in Dublin at Budgie Park car park. And it was all smashed up. The window was smashed and all his bad equipment was taken, all our bad equipment, clothes. And like this equipment is going to be absolutely useless to anybody apart from us. But to us, it's kind of very important stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, what's bat equipment? What was stolen?
So, yeah. Well, a bat detector, a song meter, many. Like, every bat has a different voice. So you can take recordings of their voices and then you run it through a programme and you can tell a bit like each bird's song. They each have their own voice. You can tell what's there.
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Chapter 2: What is bat equipment and why is it important?
So first of all, there's obviously the bat detector, which is a disaster to lose because you can't exactly buy another one tomorrow from a shop. You have to order them and they're tricky to get. But more importantly, the data that's on it is the data we've been collecting for over two months.
And the other thing that was taken, apart from his clothes, was a fibroscope, which is like something you see in a doctor's surgery. Actually, you know, if anyone has had a scope, it's like a thing that they put down. But we use it for putting into trees, for looking for bats in trees. Okay. So, yeah.
So, I mean, you know, on the scale of the world and the gas and everything that's happening at the moment, like this is small. But to us, it's kind of, oh, it is just, you know, a bit of a nightmare, especially to lose the two months monitoring. You know, it's a mess.
Are they expensive, the two bits of kit, the camera and the sonar?
Yeah, it will be a couple of thousand euros. And usually there's a bit of a waiting list for getting them. And this is our peak busy season, you know. But I mean, these are useless to anybody. So it's quite likely that someone will just...
throw them out, you know, because they're like, you know, there's not that many of us surveying for bats and nobody, unless you knew what you were doing, you wouldn't be able to use it. So, yeah, so it'll, you know, so if anyone finds a little green box and whatever and clothing and whatever.
So just describe them, if there's a possibility these might just get chucked in a bin or a skip, describe what they look like.
Yeah, so it's kind of a small little green box. I mean, we've been lucky enough that we haven't had much stuff stolen in the past. Those little green boxes, cows used to love to eat them. They used to love to eat the microphone. So we lost one or two like that. That's the only thing that's ever happened to us in the past with them.
So what did the cows think they are?
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Chapter 3: How much does bat equipment typically cost?
And I can say that having got only four nights, four hours sleep last night.
Yeah. So this is bats because we, again, we do do bats kind of around the house and it's dusk is when we'd notice the most. Like what times, usually it's a busy time of year. So what times of the day and times a year? Are busy.
Yeah, exactly. This time of year, because the mothers are having their babies.
Okay.
So it's very busy now, kind of the first of May to the end of September. It's going to be busy because the bats, like the mothers, they actually have to eat about a third of their body weight every night. They have to eat thousands of insects.
Oh, wow.
Every night. Yeah, to keep their food supplies up. And so it's very busy. In the wintertime, they go into hibernation. So, yeah, so it's grand and quiet then. Now, actually, with kind of global warming, there's a lot less hibernation than there used to be. But they drop down their temperatures. They don't need so much food. And it's got all the people who survey bats go on holidays.
We take our downtime then.
I was going to ask maybe about, you know, other animals you're interested in, but stay on the line, Donna, because Anne is after getting in touch. 0818715815. Anne, I know you were listening to Donna and you have some connection to this bat surveying world. Is that right?
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Chapter 4: What should you do if you find bat equipment?
It's an old one, but you're welcome to borrow it in the meantime. Listen, you're so good. Yeah, I'm off to the zoo tomorrow with the girl guides. So maybe I could meet you outside the zoo tomorrow morning with it.
Listen, you're very good. You're very good. But listen, no, actually, the ones that I need, because they're kind of official surveys.
Yeah. Oh, this is the one that she used on her survey. Are you using the one with the recorders?
I'm using one yet that actually takes sound analysis. So it will be a kind of a good step up for that. But no, listen, but thank you. Thank you very much. You're very good. You're very good. You really are. I much appreciate it. And if we were stuck, we definitely would be in touch, you know. Thank you.
Thank you so much. And so you said you were looking for... I hope he gets returns. Yeah, we hope so too.
Not everybody who wants one.
It might well get thrown out, is what Donna says. So, I mean, keep an eye, particularly around Bushy Park is where this happens. So the bins or skips or anything around there or just on the side of the road, this stuff could be chucked. Anne, what did you say you were looking for around the house? What did you say?
Well, we have pipistrelle bats, both soprano and ordinary pipistrelles. And my daughter's totally convinced we ought to be getting Lieslers, but I have never managed to track a Liesler.
So have you then, just kind of through osmosis, got an interest in bats now as well, Anne?
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Chapter 5: How do bats contribute to biodiversity?
And it can get wrapped around their feet.
They can't chew it off.
Yeah, and they get stuck. So, yeah, so that is, it's kind of, you know, it's kind of a, unexpected things happen that you wouldn't have thought. And this is in most houses now, you know. So, again, you know, somebody's been inventing bat-friendly, you know, timber membranes.
So obviously people can get in touch with us if they see any of this equipment or it turns up on a resale website and they suspect it might be this equipment. But if people, have you your own website that people can contact you through, Donna?
Yeah, if you just Google Wildlife Surveys Ireland, you'll find us there. And even if the lads or ladies who took us would like to get in touch with me, that would be great. And I'll meet them for a cup of coffee. Everybody does something stupid sometimes. So no problem. They want to give it back. That would be great.
Well, you can get, if those people are listening either 0818715815, drop us a text on 51551 or Wildlife Surveys Ireland and Google that you'll find Donna's contact details and you can reach out. Donna, listen, we hope it all works out for you. It's been fascinating talking to you. Thanks a million.
Thanks a million. All the best. Thanks.
Bye.
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