Bats and attics (was detectors)

[diode]

Le 6 oct. 2010 à 10:05, K9 Kai Niggemann a écrit :

> It's hard to tell the size, but it's not hard to see that the ears are pretty large, that might help species identification if you know what kinds are active in your area?

I'm investigating. But I used a key system done by a student of my university and the National Museum of Natural History of Paris. Pretty effective and complete (part of the teeth system keys are still missing).
http://abiris.snv.jussieu.fr/chiropteres/chiropteres.html (in French)

Even with a very partial observation.

It's difficult to tell for the size, the only measure I can guess is the top of the wood piece running horizontally (two can be seen) at the bottom of the pic is about 7-8 cm wide and maybe 12 cm high.

I just did the key again and ended with Plecotus austriacus, which is way more likely, the other one is not known in Switzerland.

This little guy
http://coraregion.free.fr/spip.php?article204

It is not altogether rare, but it is in this part of Europe and at this altitude, we are just under 1200 m. The good point is it goes to hibernate in september/october and moves then to caves. So there's a period (we close the cabin in early october) when we can go up in the attic and on the roof to do mods and not disturb them more than necessary. They don't appreciate bat houses so the best would be still to clear the place, have a way to keep the guano easily removable and think about a roof top solution… Anyway, there's people at the University of Neuchâtel who work at finding solutions for bats and residents. :) Plus one of the main Night of the Bats in Switzerland is hosted every year about a km from the cabin… ;)

> it's a great shot, considering how hard it is to take any picture of them at all...!

It's totally random, I found out only later that day I had a bat on two of these. And I only found out yesterday night that I had a part of the head, front seen but unusable as it's way too blurry, on a third pic.

Denis H]