by Nick Comparato
This summer marked the first season of bat monitoring at parks across Westchester county.
Though delayed by the onset of COVID, our monitoring efforts successfully collected data about the bat residents of Cranberry Lake Preserve, Lenoir Pre-serve, and two locations in Ward Pound Ridge Reser-vation. This was done with a specialized ultrasonic recording device that listened for the sounds of bats’ echolocation from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am. Using a com-puter program (SonoBat), we are actually able to identify the species of bat from the sounds captured in these recordings. The results of this summer re-vealed that Westchester plays host to a diverse and interesting group of bats.
Our most common bat, the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), was present at all four locations surveyed. This was also the case for another species, the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), that was once common, but has seen a drop in population numbers in recent years. Cranberry Lake was found to have a small population of the increasingly uncommon tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus). A thriving population of another rare species, the eastern small-footed bat (Myotis leibii), was discovered at Ward Pound Ridge. This species, which nests in crevices along rocky slopes, is federally endangered, however New York’s population has been stable. Ward Pound Ridge also holds the most promise for a population of Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), a highly endangered species, however we are still working to confirm this.
Bats are not animals that humans encounter very often, however they are a very interesting part of our environment. Using echolocation, bats hunt and consume large amounts of mosquitoes and oth-er flying insects, keeping the local population in check. At only 1.5″ – 3″ in body size, our local bats may also be a bit smaller than you expected. They are actually known as microbats, though their wings can span up to 13″. Despite this small size, the aver-age bat lives 30-40 years, making them one of the longest lived mammals relative to body size. Many species of bats have suffered serious population declines in recent years due to white-nose syndrome. This is a fungal infection that causes a white fuzz to grow on bats’ nose and wings during hibernation.