Get Involved

Join us in the Hampshire Bat Group


The individual annual membership subscription is £8.00, or £20 for three years, with renewals due in April.

Joint membership is available for two people at the same address: £12 for one year or £30 for three years.

Concessions - ask our membership secretary.


Benefits of membership include:

  • The opportunity to be directly involved in bat conservation in Hampshire
  • Our newsletter "Bat Droppings" twice a year
  • Free entry to our meetings over the winter season
  • Notification by email of our public events and talks
  • Notification by email of the latest bat news in the county
  • Access to members-only bat surveys and training
  • Access to members-only social events
  • Insurance cover while attending our surveys
  • Use of our bat survey equipment (subject to availability and a review of site security)
  • Use of our library


We are running a number of exciting projects over the coming months, in which all members are welcome and encouraged to take part.


To join us, download a copy of the membership form and fill in your details.  Follow the instructions to email it to our treasurer and arrange how you want to pay us your subscription.

Download membership form



Monitoring bats


Monitoring is the critical first step to species conservation.  Conservation work needs to use it's limited resources with maximum efficiency, and this cannot be done without an accurate idea of the population numbers, distributions and trends over time of the species concerned.


If you're serious about bat recording, the first step is to obtain a bat detector.  Bat detectors pick up the ultrasonic calls of bats (used for echolocation) and play them back at a frequency which can be heard by our human ears.


Training is available on how to use bat detectors on our training events and bat walks.  The choice of makes and models can be somewhat overwhelming.  There are four main categories of detector, heterodyne, frequency division. time expansion and full spectrum.  If you attend any of our bat walks or basic training, you will be introduced to our sets of heterodyne detectors.  For our serious research, we use time expansion and other full spectrum detectors.


We have sets of static bat detectors which we loan out to interested individuals to monitor the bat activity in their gardens. Contact us if you would like to take up this opportunity.


Please send all your bat observations to our County Recorder, Nik Knight, at recordshantsbats(at)gmail.com for incorporation into our county database.


Providing Roost Opportunities


With the persistent destruction of natural habitats, and advancements in building techniques, loss of roost site opportunities is one of the greatest threats to the conservation of our native bat species.  Thankfully this trend is starting to be combated by the incorporation of ecological mitigation in the planning system, but we can all help our nocturnal neighbours find new homes by hanging bat boxes!  Just like bird boxes, different designs are suited to different species.


Bat boxes are readily available from both online retailers and many garden centres.  These can however be quite expensive, so you may wish to have a go at making some yourself.


Please remember that bat roosts are strictly protected against disturbance, so unless you hold the appropriate licence, you shouldn't inspect bat boxes once they are in use.  Instead, record the number and species emerging at sunset, and don't forget to send us your records!


We have established large-scale bat box projects in the New Forest and North Hampsire - see our projects page for details


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