UK Nature and Environment

A citizen science project that saw volunteers set up bat detectors in locations around the North York Moors National Park captured more than 1.2 million recordings of bats, with at least 10 of the UK’s 18 different species confirmed as present in the area. The project, which was part of the Ryevitalise Landscape Partnership Scheme, also provided unexpected evidence of the northwards spread of three different species of bush cricket across the UK countryside.

Between 2020 and 2024, the Ryevitalise project worked with volunteers to conduct bat monitoring between May and September each year. Anyone was able to collect and set up the equipment in a pre-arranged location where it was then left for four nights. The devices used detect and record ultrasound, such as the echolocation calls of bats, but also noises from certain other animals, including shrews, rats, moths and crickets. Volunteers uploaded their audio recordings to the British Trust for Ornithology's ‘Acoustic Pipeline’, which uses machine learning to automatically identify species. The results are then accessible to participants through an online platform.

In total, the study captured more than 2.2 million wildlife recordings, with 1.2 million of these confirmed as having come from at least 10 different species of bats. Also recorded were four species of small mammal (common shrews, brown rats, Eurasian pygmy shrews and wood mice), along with three species of bush cricket and two audible moth species.