Bats in Cedarbrook and Thomson Memorial Parks

There are 8 bat species in Ontario, and we have observed 5 of these during our batwalks:

• Big Brown Bat

• Little Brown Myotis (Bat)

• Silver Haired Bat

• Red Eastern Bat

• Hoary Bat

Photos of each species are shown below. All images courtesy of the Metro Toronto Zoo and its Native Bat Conservation program https://www.torontozoo.com/bats. The Native Bat Conservation program has prepared a very good conservation guide available for download (.pdf) which presents a lot of information on our bat population.

Another good source for information is Bats of Ontario:

https://mattholderfund.com/product/birds-of-ontario/

The bat species commonly found in our parks are shown below. The Big Brown Bat is the most common. 

Bat Detectors and Monitoring Equipment

On the left below is a typical bat echolocation call, which is mostly in the ultrasonic range and beyond the capability of our human hearing.

Our Bat Monitoring Equipment is shown on the right below.

The Peesonic detector actually records the ultrasonic bat calls and staff at the Metro zoo processes this data and uses it to determine which bat species we are observing in the park. 

The two detectors on the far right convert the ultrasonic bat calls into audible pulses (clicks) that we can hear.  The clicks alert us to the presence of bats which we then try to observe visually. A sample of what the "clicks" sound like, along with the voices of some excited young batwalkers is attached here.