The Friends of Bushy Park Wetlands were fortunate this year to receive from Parks Victoria a community grant of $1,062 for 'Monitoring of Insectivorous Bat Populations in Bushy Park Wetlands'. Most of the money was spent on the purchase of 24 ready made Bat Nesting Boxes from Keelbundora Indigenous Plant Nursery at La Trobe University. To cater for a variety of Bats, we ordered; 8 boxes with a 12mm entrance slit, 8 boxes with a 15mm entrance slit, 5 boxes with a 18mm entrance slit and 3 boxes with a 23mm entrance slit - this size to accommodate the larger White-striped Freetail Bat. The assembled boxes are made of 5 ply, 12 mm thick and lined inside with geo textile matting material to allow the Bats to hang on. The internal size of each box is approximately 315mm high x 155mm wide x 142mm deep, partially divided into 2 side-by-side compartments. The Boxes have been painted army green, come with a hinged and latched lid, a treated pine mounting board, galvanised nails & washers and cost $33 each. Craig and Jody from Parks Victoria joined the Friends at the end of Highbury Road for a working bee on Sunday morning 8th September 2002. First we applied white paint to the bottom of the boxes with numbers starting from 205, so that we could later identify the boxes from the ground. Then loaded with eight of the boxes, an extension ladder, hammer, nails, washers, compass, tape measure, GPS unit, record sheets and a pen, we headed to the trees along Dandenong Creek. |
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We walked South, searching for suitable host trees which would allow us to hang the bat nesting boxes about 4 metres from the ground. Most of the suitable trees were Manna Gums and some trees already had Sugar Glider Nesting Boxes attached. Occasionally we also mounted a Bat Nesting Box on the same tree. Where possible we orientated the boxes to face south east so that they wouldn't get too hot in the summer. For each Box we recorded it's number, the slit opening size, its orientation, the height from the ground to the slit at the bottom of the box - see photograph, the location of the box using a GPS unit and the type of tree the box was mounted on. |
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It took us nearly 3 hours to mount 8 boxes so we will come back again on Saturday 12th October to mount some more boxes. The Friends of Bushy Park Wetlands welcome your attendance at these, or other functions. Part of the grant condition is to monitor quarterly the Bat populations found to be using the boxes. So in future years we will be using; the GPS unit again to locate the sites, an extension ladder to access the boxes and record-sheets to record the results. Bats that are know to inhabit the area are the Lesser Long-eared Bat, Little Forest Bat, Southern Forest Bat, Large Forest Bat, Chocolate Wattled Bat, Goulds Wattled Bat & White-striped Freetail Bat. For more information about the above species, click on Bats at the Friend's web page. |
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