RFI: Bat Detector
Hi everyone, I’m in the market for a bat detector and am looking for recommendations on a good one. Thanks!
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vnsankar
What are you planning on using it for? Unless you have some professional application in mind, I’d opt for one of the Echo Meter Touch models that you can plug into your phone. They are decent quality recorders and are very easy to use compared to other detectors, as you can view the sonogram directly through the app, in real time. If you want to perform more detailed analyses, that can be done through (free) software like Kaleidoscope or Sonobat Viewer, or paid versions. I have an Echo Meter Touch 2 Pro, specifically the older model (no longer available) with a lightning port that plugs into my iPhone. As Jeff notes, you’ll now need a USB-C compatible device.
I’ll also offer a few considerations for its use. I’ll preface these by saying that I’m by all means a novice at bat detecting, but have gotten a lot of hours in over the last 5 years, mostly in CA – so for those who know more, please correct me if I have anything wrong here:
1. I’m glad you’re asking this question, as I really think more mammal watchers should use bat detectors. Bat detectors get a bad rap on this site as people seem to think of them as tools to get a “cheap” (often dodgy) audio tick on a life list and nothing more. Respectfully I think this misses the point. They’re dispensable if your top priority is listing, but they are great tools in the field. I love using mine. You can try to separate tricky species pairs like Myotis ciliolabrum and Myotis californicus which are often not even separable morphologically in-hand and get a sense of what species are around at sites near home. Many bat species don’t have any published sonograms and data more broadly are few, so if you net bats with scientists on surveys, you can collect calls of hand-released individuals and contribute to the scientific record. Keep in mind though that these might differ from flight calls or free-flying bats.
2. All detectors produce the the best results with free-flying, individual bats in a quiet, open setting. If you’re in dense vegetation, holding the mic close to your body, inside a building, or under a bridge, you often get very mushy, low quality audio even with a great mic.
3. The EMT can’t record very high frequency calls, and you’ll typically have an upper limit around 100kHz. So it’s a good device for species in North America and the western Palearctic but will struggle with e.g., a lot of tropical Asian Hipposiderids.
4. Don’t trust the auto ID. It varies from vaguely useful as a starting point (in places like CA, where training data are ok) to a fiction making algorithm. I always re-ID calls manually that I’m most interested in. And more broadly, it’s good to recognize that bat ID from recordings is a lot more complicated than bird ID from calls. Most ID parameters apply to flight calls of free-flying bats in open settings. So you will get flight calls that have different parameters (esp bandwidth) in more closed settings, not to mention the remarkable array of weird looking, mostly unidentifiable social calls you get if you record a colony. Parameters can also vary regionally. Finally, many bats (especially in the tropics) are species complexes and there’s a lot of undescribed variation. Just try to use max discretion as a result.
5. I think we should start maintaining resources for bat call ID on this site. Here are a couple for CA and Mexico that I use:
https://sonobat.com/download/Acoustic_Features_of_Western_US_Bats_2018.pdf
https://mamiferosmexico.org/books/Compendio%20de%20llamados%20de%20murci%C3%A9lagos.pdf
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JeffHigdon
Are you looking for a standalone unit or one that connects to a smartphone/tablet? And if the latter, do you have Android or iOS? Or more importantly, what type of port does it have?
I really like my Echo Meter Touch 2 Pro from Wildlife Acoustics. Works on Android and iOS devices with a USB-C port. Older Androids with a micro-USB port will work with an adaptor, but older iOS devices with a lightning port are not compatible.
There are two Echo Meter Touch 2 models – the base model and the Pro model. The Pro version has more features, but comes at a higher cost (350 USD vs 180 USD). The non-Pro version is out of stock on the Wildlife Acoustics website until mid-February.