Bat expert Rick Payne has received a grant through Cornwall Wildlife Trust which will enable him to record bat species in Cornwall and to assist in teaching members of the public how to use bat detectors.

The grant of £200 was for an Echo Meter Touch and comes from the Alexanda Recorders Fund hosted by Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Rick, a member of the Cornwall Bat Group, said: ‘Bats make up nearly a quarter of the species of mammals in the UK but despite this they are still under recorded and most of us know very little about them. Using the grant from the Alexanda Recorders Fund, I was able to buy a detector, which I wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise. This has greatly increased the ease, speed and accuracy of my recordings and I have also been able to use the visual component of the detector to show members of the public how to differentiate between bat calls.’

Rick Payne is a regular contributor to ORKS, the Trust’s recording service through which anyone can report sightings of wildlife.

The Alexanda Recorders Fund was set up in 2015 in memory of Walter Alexanda Marsh by his daughter Frances A Chapman and is available to individuals and small wildlife conservation volunteer groups or charities for projects that will make their research and wildlife records available to the wider wildlife conservation sector.