Haliburton Highlands Land Trust News
Courtesy of the Haliburton Highlands Land Trust
Photo by Igam Ogma
Land Trust Discovery Days:
Bat Box Workshop
Twenty new bat boxes added to Haliburton County! On Saturday, June 9, at the Fish Hatchery, 24 adults and 4 children constructed bat boxes from kits created by the Haliburton Highlands Outdoors Association in partnership with the Land Trust.
Paul Heaven, the Land Trust’s bat project biologist, visited the workshop to summarize our research results and answer participants’ questions on bats and bat boxes.
If you missed this workshop and want to make a bat box, sign up at our website for our second workshop on July 21 at Abbey Gardens. But don’t delay as spaces are limited!
Save the Date: ‘
Rock Our World’ Fundraising Dance
Come dance, Friday August 10 at the Haliburton Legion! Earlybid pricing of just $30 until July 1! Featuring Jamie Williams Entertainment and Cheeky Monkey as our jazz opener. Check this link to our website for all the details!
HHLT Bat Counts
Our second objective is to investigate some of the hot-spots we identified through the 2017 inventories. Sites of high activity may represent maternity roosts (moms and pups) which are of particular importance to the local population.
We have now revisited four sites multiple times to conduct evening bat counts and verify the presence
of bats at risk through further acoustical inventories. The Little Brown Myotis has been
identified at all four sites, and the Northern Myotis at two of them. This is consistent with our data from last year. However, the Eastern Small-footed Myotis, which was identified at three of the sites in 2017, has disappeared from all three sites in 2018.
Investigations continue.
P.S. If you see five or more bats in one location, please contact the Land Trust at admin@haliburtonlandtrust.ca.
Also, please continue reporting all species at risk (SAR) to Paul Heaven pheaven@glenside-eco.ca as the Land Trust is still collecting this information. A full list of SAR can be found on our website.
The Land Trust is grateful for generous funding for this project by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry Species at Risk Stewardship Fund.
FUN FACTS ABOUT BATS! Thanks to Valerie for forwarding us this really interesting link about bats.
Did you know: Over 500 species of plants, and almost all tropical rainforest species, depend heavily on bats for pollination; without bat pollination there would be no tequila, bananas, mangoes, chocolate, or avocados, and 80 fewer important medicines!? Learn more! http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2018/05/07/several-short-sentences-about-bats/
February 26-March 1 is Invasive Species Awareness Week.