It's getting really hoary over here!

On August 31st, Wildheart conducted a third survey at Bellefontaine Cemetery with the help of many amazing students enrolled in a program through the Dana Brown Overnight Center at Shaw Nature Reserve. The students in this program are interested in wildlife conservation and spend the whole summer helping biologists in the field collect data and learn about ecological field methods.

The survey was a major success, with the most individuals and species caught to date. Due to a light sprinkle of rain, many bats flew lower than usual to get out of the rain and were captured by our nets! We captured 12 bats of four species: big brown bats, evening bats, eastern red bats, and a hoary bat. The hoary bat (photo 1) is a new species to our surveys at Bellefontaine. It's not that hoary bats are rare, as they are fairly common, but they are very rarely caught in mist nets. They fly very high above the canopy and typically only come down low during storms and to drink water. This was a special treat!

For the second time, we caught a flying squirrel (photo 2)! This individual appeared to be an adult male, and was nice enough to let us examine him up close and take some photos before he was safety released back.