We’re looking for more volunteers to join our teams of surveyors up in the Rockingham Forest area between Corby and Peterborough. In particular we need help with our small mammal surveys - focusing on bat and dormouse monitoring projects. Interested?

Volunteers would be expected to be able to volunteer on an annual basis to carry out surveys on fixed dates, around six each year, including evenings and/or weekends.

Bat surveys

The bat surveys involve a couple of hours in the evening walking through the wood or standing at a fixed point with an acoustic bat detector (which transforms the bats’ ultrasonic calls to ones we can hear) and a recording bat detector, for later analysis by office volunteers. The calls used by different bat species and you will quickly learn to recognise the more common species, and hopefully also hear some of our rarer ones too.

Dormouse surveys

In contrast the dormouse surveys usually take place on a weekend. Starting in the morning and lasting into the early afternoon you will be checking dormouse nest boxes under the supervision of a licence holder. You’ll be recording any nests and animas found, and learning how to handle the small mammals to determine their age, sex and weight. Sadly we cannot guarantee that you’ll see a dormouse as they can be elusive! Wood mice, bank voles and shrews are commonly encountered using the boxes and provide an excellent training opportunity.

How to get involved

Any experience of surveying would be helpful not essential as basic training can be provided in the field and free Training Workshops* are available. All we ask is that you have an interest in developing these survey techniques, a desire to support the Wildlife Trust and the willingness to work and learn as part of a team.

Join the Ecology Group by emailing us on EcologyGroups@wildlifebcn.org and we'll get in touch to set everything up. If you're already an Ecology Group volunteer, please sign up to these surveys in the usual way.