• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Mobile batting (1 Viewer)

Hi Ricardo,

I am still struggling with the basics myself, but will gladly try to help.

The micro trio seems the best option but I have the following doubts that I can not resolve reading the manual.

- Recordings can be made once at a time using the internal memory on HD or TE. So only one small recording (1s) can be taken home for analyzing which seems a bad thing. It seems it is possible to record more using a digital recorder. If using TE, can you record as long as you want? Or that is only possible with HD? Can you record while listening?

Just back from a walk of 1.5 hrs, which included 26 new recordings (all TE). As I said above, the MP330 allows to take 99 recordings. This is quite a lot. Both the MP330 and the headphone are connected to the micro trio via a dual adaptor. - When there are NO bats (yet), I often use the FD mode. It will alarm me if a bat appears on the scenery. But FD is noisy (hiss) and yesterday it was irritating to get too many false alarms (living in a city has downsides - industrial noise, even late at night). HD is more pleasant to listen to. Yet most of the time I am in TE mode, in particular if there are bats. If I notice one, I just have to press the center button, and the (temporary) recording of circa 1s full-spectrum sound is made. [If in FD, you have to press another button first, to get TE mode; it takes 1-2 seconds more.]

If the recording is OK (it can be checked by listening to the time-expanded 10 seconds), I'll start the MP330 (start-stop button) and replay the recording from the temporary memory. After the ten seconds, I press the MP330 button again, the recording is now stored on the MP330. Another press on the center button of the Ciel (3 seconds) empties the tempory memory. This sounds complicated, but quickly becomes routine. So you can make about two recordings per minute, if you really have to. No guarantee that you'll catch every single bat, but it gives you a fair chance to record bats for later PC analysis.

The SSF Bat 2 has a great thing that it tells you the peak frequency so you can automatically change to it to hear it. Can you do something similar using the micro Trio from Ciel?

Maybe someone who owns the SSF Bat2 can weigh in here. My impression is that I am not missing much in TE mode. My thumb is at the dial wheel, and one short movement brings me from 37 kHz to 77 kHZ. Pressing the "peak" button of the SSF Bat2 costs time, but no doubt the button is useful. The device has to find the best frequency - else you couldn't record the sound in the first place. The advantage of the micro trio is that by just pressing one button you get a full-spectrum recording. One push of a button instead of two. And the result has a better quality than FD sound.

More about some problems which I have with the micro trio in another post.
 
Common Noctule

The SSF Bat 2 has a great thing that it tells you the peak frequency so you can automatically change to it to hear it. Can you do something similar using the micro Trio from Ciel?
The Elekon batscanner does the same thing that the SSF Bat 2 but automatically wich is also good.

Indeed. It would be very useful to have a large "81" blinking on the display, to signal the presence of a Greater Horseshoe! Unfortunately the "micro trio" is lacking such a feature. How the Batscanner works in practice is seen on a nice video at Elekon's website: http://www.elekon.ch/de/batlogger/bat_produkte/batscanner/

Impressive sound, and these frequency numbers must be an enormous help. What I don't like is the absence of a recording option. Without evidence, can you be really sure that there was a Greater Horseshoe? It is worth reading the detailed review by Al Milano, at http://batdetecting.blogspot.de/2013/08/review-new-batscanner-from-elekon.html , which includes the remark: "What I've done during the test period, was to bring a small notebook to jot down the frequencies displayed by The Batscanner while picking up bats. To look over later on - Pretty neat!"

I guess it is the perfect device for an experienced bat-worker: to be able to listen to the sound, with the frequency information as a welcome additional support while focusing on the action. Not ideal for a dilettante like me, I fear.

Postscriptum: The attached files are a recording of a Common Noctule, if we can exclude a Leisler's. The BatExplorer suggests so, and gives a probability of 52% for a Noctule.
 

Attachments

  • Common Noctule 52p.wav
    587.1 KB · Views: 123
  • Common Noctule.jpg
    Common Noctule.jpg
    163.9 KB · Views: 165
Hi Ricardo, and HermitIbis,

I think the detector that tells you the peak frequency is a bit of a red herring for identification.. Sure, there are some bats that can be identified by frequency alone, but a heck of a lot peak at ~45Khz for example.
So you either need: experience of the tone of the call in HD, the repetition / speed, and how it varies across the frequencies, plus the behaviour/size of the bat, and the habitat / environment it is occurring in. Frequencies will change in clutter, or open environments. OR you need to record the call, and analyse it back at home.

I don't believe the SSF or Elekton are able to give meaningful recordings. (HD recordings don’t have an accurate baseline, plus you don’t know if the call is above or below the frequency! This may change if a library of HD calls from these detectors is produced, but there are a lot of variables.)

Of the three, the Ciel Micro Trio seems to be the best bet for checking Bats in the field, and producing recordings for later analysis. (I haven't used one, but HermitIbis's results are proof that it can be worked out pretty quickly)

I think coming into the hobby now, the Ciel trio, a wav recorder, and the BatExplorer software would be the best way to go.. My only concern is that there is a danger of relying on the recordings and software, as opposed to learning to analyse the bats yourself, and using the software to confirm later. But you have to learn somewhere, and the knowledge isn't always easily accessible, so you can work back with experience.

Finally, I'll let you know my set up.. which has worked well for a few years, (but is still relatively expensive and I wouldn't recommend you going down this route), is a Peterrsson D230 and Zoom H2N recorder.

The D230 with headphones has FD in one ear, and HD in the other.. so you don’t miss a bat in the area, and can tune the HD to identify to a certain extent going by what is in your ears, and visual clues. The Recorder is best used to make long recordings throughout the evening, jotting down the significant times for bats. (Recordings are stereo: HD in one channel, FD in the other)
The setup also works well left unattended, and automatically recording when a sound threshold is exceeded.. I have found that all false alarms tend to be a smaller file size, so it is easy to sort and delete the false files, then sift thru the Bats. I use Audacity, and wavesurfer software to analyse the calls.. Not automatic, and quite time consuming, but I have to use my knowledge to solve the bat species, which is quite rewarding in itself.
 
Hi Hermitibis,
Your Common Pipistrelle looks good, with presumably a social call as you say.
The Noctule and Serotine, I would need to hear the sequence of calls using my method of identification.. Noctules tend to be a slow chip-chop-chip-chop. Serotine is a faster irregular Chip-Chip-Chip-Chip!
(Leisler's Bat tends to be somewhere in between, and kind of complicates the whole picture)
The peak frequency seems on the high side for the Noctule, which would be explained if it was in a built up environment. The identification software doesn't seem to be phased by any of this!
 
Thank you so much, Peter. These first steps are difficult, and will become even harder when I meet bats from the "Myotis" kind. - The serotines apparently return to the same place with some reliability. On Wednesday I'll try to record them in FD mode - as an experiment. Until now I have preferred TE, but recording the FD sound (for a few seconds or so) should be possible.

The free BatExplorer software is also able to work with FD sound in wav format - you just have to put in "8" instead of "10" in the entry dialogue. By the way: it is certainly not the fault of this software that I am inclined to come to premature identifications. It is my own fault. The software does an admirable job to warn that the user must consider the huge overlap of the fundamental data" (frequency, call distance, etc etc) of our bat species. And that in some cases an identification up to species remains out of reach.
 
Thank you guys. It seems that the micro trio will be my choice.

I just have one final doubt that I can not solve looking through the manual. While on FD mode, what information do you get in the display?. I understand from your posts that you dont get the peak frequency. Well, you just can have everything for this price.

Thanks.

PD: I hope that the problems with the micro trio you mention in the previous post N° 21 are not a big deal. ;-)
 
Last edited:
I hope that the problems with the micro trio you mention in the previous post N° 21 are not a big deal. ;-)

I bought the "micro trio" in a special offer, including a battery, dual adapter, Sony earphone MDR-E-756 and a beltbag. All items were fine, except the beltbag. Incredibly noisy - like someone following in your footsteps rattling with keys or coins all the time. Just a minor quarrel of mine, it has nothing to do with the micro trio itself. The dual adapter is ugly, but it works.

While micro trio and MP330 cooperate nicely in these TE recordings, I still have no idea whether I'll be able to do any overnight recording of heterodyne or FD mode. I am aware that such recordings would have a lower quality, nothing like the BatloggerM (Euro 1.800+) or the Pettersson D240X (Euro 1.150+) would give you. On the other side, since I already own the micro trio, it would be nice to try out, at least, some form of unattended recording during the night. The place where I live is close to a river, and I know that there is the occasional bat, in a distance of perhaps 20-30m from the house.

Peter has achieved great results by combining a Pettersson D230 and the Zoom H2n recorder. That's a bit less expensive than the top-class mentioned above, but still... The advantage of the H2n over the MP330 is its "voice activated recording". I want to test the overnight talents of the micro trio, but at first I'll need something which can do VAR. For example a Zoom H2, or a H2n, or the software "Goldwave" for my PC/tablet.

So if you can wait, Ricardo, I'll be back in a while to tell you more. This bat season is almost over anyway...

Stefan (alias HermitIbis)


Edit: Your question:
While on FD mode, what information do you get in the display?
It shows just "----", nothing else. In particular no peak frequency. I guess what looks so simple in Elekon's video is actually very difficult to produce - lots of filtering technology. Or else the device would far too often display frequencies emitted by non-bats. No question, Elekon or Pettersson are producing excellent detectors.
 
Last edited:
Thanks again Stefan,

Here where I live we do get nice weather in Autumm and I usually see bats in the middle of the Winter when we have a warm week. And I would like to try the device before spring comes. Although I will wait a bit to buy the recorder, so I will eagerly wait for your tests.
The other alternatives I have either are too expensive for me right now (Maybe if I get more into this I will go for one of the top class devices I the near future) or they will not allow me to make recordings.
I am very bad at identifying birds by their calls so I guess it will be the same with bats so a little help with bat sound software will help me a lot.

It is a pitty that you dont get the peak frequency information while on FD, but as Peter sais, peak frequencies are not 100% accurate for identifying, which is my main purpouse.

Regards,

Ricardo
 
Serotine: chip-chop or not

The Noctule and Serotine, I would need to hear the sequence of calls using my method of identification.. Noctules tend to be a slow chip-chop-chip-chop. Serotine is a faster irregular Chip-Chip-Chip-Chip!
(Leisler's Bat tends to be somewhere in between, and kind of complicates the whole picture)
The peak frequency seems on the high side for the Noctule, which would be explained if it was in a built up environment. The identification software doesn't seem to be phased by any of this!
Indeed, this wasn't a convincing recording for a Noctule. According to my local source "FF2" there are both Noctule's and Leisler's living in the park, and I hope that I can eventually watch the two - it would help a lot. I've just watched an online video which had short takes of Noctules in flight. My impression was that it looks different than "my Serotines": wings more extended, thinner.

Three wav recordings added, from my last meeting with the "Serotines". The first audio is what I hear in the heterodyne mode, the second was taken in FD mode. The third one is, again, a TE recording made a bit earlier (plus the BatExplorer screen-shot of the TE file). It was still early, during the recording I saw the Serotines against the sky.

But the TE file actually shows more than just the serotines. There is another bat at 20.5 kHz. So my lesson for the day was, ultimately, that IDing bats can be a very difficult task.

[PS: I said in an earlier post: "BatExplorer ... is also able to work with FD sound in wav format - you just have to put in "8" instead of "10" in the entry dialogue." Seems untrue, I don't know where I got the idea. The result is not useful. - WaveSurfer is a bit too complicated for me. Maybe "BatScanner" is an option: not expensive and able to handle FD sound.]
 

Attachments

  • Heterodyne.wav
    530 KB · Views: 133
  • FD Frequency Division.wav
    677.2 KB · Views: 131
  • TExp Serotine etc.wav
    640.4 KB · Views: 125
  • TExp Serotines etc.JPG
    TExp Serotines etc.JPG
    142.7 KB · Views: 170
Hi, yes, I would say that was a classic Serotine.. Irregular and fast, compared to Noctule. (Serotine often described as a jazz drummer, I don't listen to jazz!).

Does the spectrogram show a Serotine with 2 Noctule calls at lower frequency? Not impossible. Noctules tend to whizz by quite high. Serotines often circle the same area, and hang around for longer. Think they are more "chunky" than the long, thin winged Noctule.

I think you are going to have to see and record a definite Leisler's, then try and pick out any differences on your system, or hope BatExplorer knows the differences. I've only ever recorded Leisler's by sight id. once, and other times where they are the only Noctule group bat in the location (Madeira)
 
I haven't had chance to experiment with Bat Explorer on FD files.. the division ratio of FD files is 10, at least on my detector, but not sure what it would make of an FD file.
I'd be more hopeful if there was a toggle in the software for TE or FD.
 
Serotine vs Noctule

Hi, yes, I would say that was a classic Serotine.. Irregular and fast, compared to Noctule.
The Bat Conservation Trust offers a useful pdf file (2 pages) for download (google: Notes_for_separating_species_on_Field_Survey_2013.pdf ), which helps to distinguish Serotine, Noctule and the occasional Leisler's Bats in the field. They give the bats' silhouettes and additional "visual clues":

Noctule has long narrow wings • Flies high with steep dives • Open habitats

Leisler’s bat similar to noctule, but smaller • Tends to fly lower with shallower swoops

Serotine has very broad wings • Fluttery flight not as high • Edge habitats

A word so far missing in my vocabulary was "fluttery". It is the perfect term to describe this large bat's flight. And the silhouette is a lasting impression if you have watched the bat, if only for a few minutes. Often it was very close, just 1-2 meters away.

According to my sources, both Serotine and Noctule are "loud". But which of the two has the louder echolocation call? Would this information give me an additional hint to distinguish these bats? It was surprising that in my TE recording above the Noctule was louder (more dB) than the Serotine which I was watching. In your words, "Noctules tend to whizz by quite high." Here it seems to me that the Noctule was quite close, perhaps sneaking through behind my back.
 
Last edited:
I would say Noctules are one of the loudest European bats, their echolocation can be heard from a couple of hundred metres away, and that is how you tend you pick them up.. hear them on the bat detector, and maybe see one above the pylons, or trees in the distance. They often don't hang around.
 
Another useful hint from the Bat Conservation Trust (page 16 of a pdf file, published online: BRM_Wavesurfer_for_sonogram_analysis.pdf ) on Noctule calls:
As [noctule echolocation] calls become more CF and ‘flattened’ [...] the more likely it is that the identification is correct if the peak frequency is around 19 kHz.

A week ago I've recorded a bat that was probably a Noctule. The wav file is attached below, plus the BatExplorer sonogram. The two "lower" calls show a peak at about 19.5 kHz, and they are both flatter, more constant-frequency, than the other calls. Thus, following the rule of thumb given above, the frequency and shape of the calls seem consistent with a possible identification of the species as Noctule.

Yet there is a problem. If these were the signals of TWO noctules, the bat with the two "lower" calls had a call distance of 430 ms - clearly outside the range (up to 300 ms) of the noctule. So my conclusion would be that the recording shows only one bat. However, I have checked other sonograms of noctule calls, and haven't observed such a "hopping" from 21.5 to 19.5 kHz. (*)

It is unfortunate that the micro trio catches only TE sequences of ~1s of bat sound. If we had a longer sample, with more than just two "low calls", such a problem would perhaps find an easy solution.


Edit: (*) Silly me. It must be exactly this habit of the noctule to vary between two echolocation calls, higher ones and the lower 20kHz calls, which generates the "chip-chop" for our human ears. It shows that I am a beginner. My only excuse for overlooking the obvious is, perhaps, that the bat didn't strictly follow his songbook, with its "chip-chip-chop".
 

Attachments

  • Noctule, September 5.JPG
    Noctule, September 5.JPG
    136.8 KB · Views: 130
  • Noctule, September 5.wav
    687.7 KB · Views: 125
Last edited:
About the possibilities of unattented recording with the micro trio.
The advantage of the H2n over the MP330 is its "voice activated recording". I want to test the overnight talents of the micro trio, but at first I'll need something which can do VAR. For example a Zoom H2, or a H2n, or the software "Goldwave" for my PC/tablet.

Apparently Audacity is able to go through long wav files, recognize silent segments and save the "audio events" in new wav files. So I decided to try a different, less expensive strategy first. The MP330 will be the recorder, its storage capacity can easily handle a full night of wav recording (eight hours are only ~500 MB). The PC and the free software Audacity will hopefully do the rest, if I find the right filter settings. - Today I ordered a shielded audio cable that will replace the cheap MP330 cable. It won't work miracles, but won't hurt either. Two days ago I've heard bats from the window. Maybe the micro trio in FD mode cannot identify much. At least the experiment can show the degree of nocturnal bat activity. In the case of a negative result, I'll gladly focus on active recording of bats with the micro trio. It is a lot of fun.
 
Yes. If your PC can handle the large file, audacity is not so bad manually fast forwarding thru until you see the very uniform, sine like shape of a bat pass,. There are tools to split mp3 and wav files into manageable chunks if your PC is labouring. Mp3split I think is one
 
Natterer's bat

Nine days ago I recorded a bat which may belong to the Myotis genus. For the first time I had searched for bats far away from the river. A semi-open area with trees, bushes, no large water bodies nearby. Close to Renningen, it was studied in a bat monitoring in 2012. So I knew in advance that there are 13 bat species living at this place, including four species of the genus Myotis: M. bechsteinii, M. myotis, M. mystacinus and M. nattereri.

The wav file and the BatExplorer screen are given below. This place seemed rural and quiet at first, so I was surprised by the level of background noise (still no idea what it was). Yet possibly the recording contains, above the noise, also some sounds from a bat. Speculating even more, I'd say that it could have been a Natterer's bat. - True, this is far-fetched even if my claim that the sonogram shows a Myotis sound were correct. Fortunately, the Daubenton's are missing in the area, and the "end frequency" of the calls are perhaps a bit too low for bechsteinii, myotis or mystacinus.

I would say Noctules are one of the loudest European bats [...]
A book by Dietz & Kiefer (Die Fledermäuse Europas, 2014) says that the Noctule holds the record among bats with 137 dB, and its call can be recorded from 150 metres away. Meanwhile the average recording distance of Natterer's is given (p. 108) as mere 15 metres in open habitat and 8m in forest. For the bats which are both quiet and rarer than a Natterer's, I'll need lots of luck.
 

Attachments

  • Natterer's bat.wav
    672.4 KB · Views: 127
  • Natterer's bat.jpg
    Natterer's bat.jpg
    168.8 KB · Views: 142
Last edited:
Unattended recording

TE recordings from my home have convinced me that there is much bat activity in the trees separating the street from the river shore. Mostly common pipistrelles, occasionally a Nathusius - quite a few of the latter are busy hunting across the river, and it happens quite frequently that one of them shows up in my home recordings. Sounds from Noctules are a bit rarer, their fly-overs not as common as in the park.

Last night I tried another session of "unattended" FD recording, 105 minutes. It was easy to check the results with Audacity, once again proving how useful this free software is. The results are not impressive, however. The additional information which I could get from overnight recordings seems limited. The first picture shows how useless the results are, clearly worse than TE sonograms. The frequency seems to peak at 45 kHz, but as Peter has already mentioned, such a vague information is miles away from an identification.

Still, playing around with Audacity is fascinating. See the second picture. The frequencies over 10-minute intervals at some points of the file (Audacity limits such analysis to 11 minutes) differ greatly and might be a hint that Nathusiuses were abundand around 0:45 a.m., but almost missing at midnight and at the end of the recording. Or am I overinterpreting here?

Edit: I forgot to mention that the frequency numbers in Audacity have to be multiplied by 10. According to the manual of the Ciel micro trio, in both HD and FD mode of this device, the frequencies are divided by 10, to make the sound audible for humans.
 

Attachments

  • 17Sept2014 FD sound.jpg
    17Sept2014 FD sound.jpg
    115.6 KB · Views: 132
  • Frequencies midnight to 2 a.m..JPG
    Frequencies midnight to 2 a.m..JPG
    191.1 KB · Views: 125
Last edited:
Soprano pipistrelle

The following recording may be my first Soprano pipistrelle. However, there are two problems. First, the Soprano is missing in the "official" list of Pforzheim bats published by the Pforzheim Umweltamt. Our bureaucrats can not have overlooked a species, or can they? Second, the place where I found this bat was the main cemetery, 1 km away from the river. Apparently Sopranos prefer habitats near the water. - Could my "Soprano" be something else?
 

Attachments

  • Soprano pipistrelle.jpg
    Soprano pipistrelle.jpg
    159.6 KB · Views: 129
  • Soprano pipistrelle - Pipistrellus pygmaeus.wav
    463.3 KB · Views: 122
Audio Recorders

In general I am satisfied with the MP330, it does a good job in storing the sound in WAV format. There was a problem today when it ceased to work. I had forgotten to recharge the MP330 after it had stored FD sound over the night for 8.5 hours in a file of 476 MB. Sure, I should have checked the power status. But it is something you have to keep in mind - for old-type recorders an extra battery in the pocket used to be a simple routine.

WAV ability, low price, a line-in jack and a weight of 25g are advantages of this recorder. It is also illuminated - relevant in darkness. The company Ciel offers another recorder on their website: Olympus VN713PC, which is heavier, costs more, can't record wav and the display is not iluminated.

Serious alternatives to the MP330 are the Zoom H2 or H2n. In online auctions available in good/used condition for about 2-3 times the price of the MP330, and I have no doubt that they are worth every cent. But for storing sound from the micro trio, the MP330 seems capable enough.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 9 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top