Field Notes
Practical articles and guides on bat ecology, thermal tracking, and survey methodology.
Articles
Bat Emergence Survey Software: Automating Roost Assessment from Thermal Video
Thermal video and automated tracking turn bat emergence surveys from manual tallies into reproducible, timestamped records that satisfy UK planning requirements.
Exit Counting: Automating Bat Emergence Surveys at a Single Roost Exit
Counting bats at a roost exit is a legal survey requirement and a population indicator. Thermal video and automated crossing detection replace manual counts with reproducible, timestamped records.
Understanding What Bats Do, Not Just That They Are There
Thermal video tracking lets ecologists move beyond presence data into movement ecology — speed, curvature, foraging behaviour, and spatial use, all from reconstructed trajectories.
Guides
Choosing a Thermal Camera for Bat Surveys
Frame rate, NETD, FOV, resolution — the four criteria that determine whether your camera produces usable data, and why radiometric capability is no longer required.
Camera Positioning for Bat Emergence Surveys
How to position and angle your camera to maximise detection: mount height, sky background, framing the exit, and avoiding camera movement.
Camera Suitability Simulator
Enter your camera's FOV, resolution, and target distance to calculate pixels per bat and check whether your setup meets the detection threshold.
TrackBats in Action: From Raw Video to Results
Watch a complete walkthrough from uploading footage to reading the emergence count, highlights video, heatmap, and exported track data.