Bats,Wildlife and Green Corridors

[fbcpmike]

Multimap and Google Earth carry photos but are upto a year or two out of date. Multimap have reduced the resolution as they found the photos they had posted could be worked up into larger hi-resolution images.

For up to date photos try local model plane clubs, some run helicopters fitted with cameras.

Some species of bats (Eg. Pipistrelles) can cope with reasonably large gaps in the greenery. Our population of Pips have several well defined runways with two of them having gaps. One of 100mts over open grassland is not crossed, the other again about 100mts but being gardens and a road. They fly up the gardens between houses, across the road, between houses and then up and down the back to back gardens. Having finished for the evening they go back across the road into the park to roost.

We are looking into extending the tree line down the open grassed area to join up with the next patch of woodland.

[harasseddad]

Round our way the Roe deer are moving about via the railway lines. This allows them to penetrate quite far into the city at night, and retreat again before morning. Thankfully we have very few late night trains.

[Cotham Marble]

There are a number of sources for commercially supplied aerial photographs - try

uk aerial photography: aerial maps, digital aerial photos, aerial photo prints

or

Archaeology UK - aerial, photograph, photo, Placename Finder,place, gazetteer,database,england,wales,scotland,english, welsh,scottish

which looks like it could be a cheap option ??

If you can make a case for your activity being purely research, you may get help from local Planning authority, County Archaeology and/or Envoronmental Officers, and maybe Univerities.

CM

[thunder]

Quote
Bats can find traditional flight lines disrupted by relatively small gaps appearing in hedges. I'm not a bat expert, but heard this in a talk recently - some species are more vulnerable than others, and the gaps talked about were not much more than a few metres.
Endquote

Well, that might be true, but there is no evidence that it affects the bats very much - they are much too clever to allow a gap of a few metres to worry them!

henrya

[Gill Catton]

I always assess local 'green corridors' and also put thought into how they can be improved, it also helps work out how likely it is that species such as dormouse might be present (as they often need good links to quality historical habitat as they don't disperse well without apparently)

I find the best resolution, that lets you almost identify individual trees for most of the uk is live local Live Local Search (select hybrid view) - its not the most up to date but it is the clearest view.....

[nightshade]

Sorry I have only just got around to this old thread
Thank you all for your suggestions they all have merit
Gills suggestion Live Local Search is presently the best
but I can see trees that have already been cut down
several without permission by "nod and a wink" consent
these have left huge gaps in my local green corridor
I shall be asking my local council for a list of protected trees
and see if I need to add more
There is so much we assume will "always be there" and it only
takes minutes with a chainsaw to fell half a dozen trees "by mistake"
Watch your Local Planning Applications online,and look out especially
for the "Developers Cowboys" who will come in from areas with
little work and cut trees down "in error" then disappear cash in hand
I have already had some sucess with getting trees planted and am trying
to get the local Memorial Park tree-d this will continue the River Chew
Corridor here
YOU are the ones that will GET THINGS DONE