Join us during peak California Central Coast bat season on Thursday, July 13th for a community science bat walk at our Santa Rita Ranch. From 7-10 PM, Bill Haas, Director of the Central Coast Bat Survey, along with four of his volunteer group leaders, will lead a bat walk at this beautiful LCSLO preserve. Prior to the walk, LCSLO staff will provide a brief description and history of the ranch (and a few “rules of the road”). Bill will then provide a brief description of the purpose and methods of the bat walk along with a summary of what species have already been documented from the ranch. The walk will begin soon after sunset and continue into the early hours following nightfall when bats here are most active. Since we will be walking along several of the preserve’s dirt trails through and along the forest edge, participants will be required to wear sturdy footwear and have a hand-held light source or headlamp. Cell phone lights do not qualify as a lighting source and all cell phones will be turned off during the walk so as not to interfere with the bat detectors.
To maximize each participant’s experience, we can only accommodate 12 people for this event. Each leader will have a detector and be responsible for a group of three. The detectors will provide “real time” visual and audio feedback of bats as they pass over our locations as we walk. . The 1.5-hour walk will cover approximately one mile over easy-to-negotiate terrain (albeit in the dark) after which we’ll compare results and have a short Q&A. Our goal is for everyone to have departed the ranch by 10pm.
To RSVP for the bat walk click here and fill out the Google Form.
For questions, please email Alex at alexz@lcslo.org.