It’s always worth checking the council’s official site. Today features something close to my own personal interests: a request for data on urban bats.

“The Bat Conservation Trust with support from Neath Port Talbot Council and Neath Port Talbot Biodiversity Forum are running an urban bat survey this summer.  It is hoped that the survey will form part of one of the biggest surveys of urban bats in S. Wales undertaken to date.  It will identify hot-spots for bat activity, which in turn could help with their conservation as all 17 species of UK bat are threatened.

“The project aims to get as many people as possible involved in simple bat surveying techniques to collect vital information about our threatened town bats by involving local members of the community.

“People will be asked to:

• come to a training session in April and perhaps again in May, 
• choose/ adopt a 1km²  convenient for them to survey,
• undertake 3 evening surveys from June to September in their chosen 1km^2.”

I hope someone from Cadoxton with more time to spare than I have will take up the challenge. I know there are bats in the area, though I must confess I would have difficulty identifying the species.

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