Juanita Browne: enjoying the night life — tracking down the water bat

Sign up to get a 'bat detector' and your data will be fed into an All-Ireland bat survey 

Daubenton's bat. Picture: Frank Greenway

Every August, I spend a couple of evenings walking in the darkness along a lonely canal, carrying a torch, clipboard and a small strange device that crackles like an out-of-tune radio. This doesn’t sound like much fun, but it is! I am hunting for bats.

I am one of hundreds of volunteers taking part in the All-Ireland Daubenton’s Bat Survey, run by Bat Conservation Ireland (BCI).