Hi Sarina,

I have found Cuddeback quite effective, been using it since a year and a half. We haven't specifically used camera traps for bats, per say, but we have captured some amount of bat pictures in our traps. I believe Cuddeback would be useful, also opting for the ones with white flash instead of infrared ones would give clearer pictures, no matter the light conditions.

The experience I have with the camera traps is that most of them are slow to take good pictures of bats, however the Panthercams have given us very clear pictures of bats even without having been placed for that purpose, they have very good speed. If you want good videos I would recommend bushnell.

Olliff, E. R, C. W. Cline, D. C. Bruena, E. J. Yarmchuck , R. S. Pikles , and L. Hunter. 2014. The Panthercam a camera-trap optimized for monitor­ing wild felids. Wild Felid Monitor 7: 21–28.

Agreed with Moreno, however for the camera trap I would suggest either Bushnell or Reconyx camera trap, that I am using. In my experience, I feel well in its image quality as well as video mode.

Thank you.

Shivish

I am using Reconyx PC900 cameras in a project looking at birds right now, and I have gotten a few pictures of bats in the IR mode. The problem is, at least with this model, if the bats are more than 2 meters or so from the camera they will be too small to trigger a photo. Like Shah said, a flash mode would be better than the IR mode for actually taking the image, but the Reconyx cameras use IR to set off the motion sensor to take a photo even when the image isn't IR. Definitely good image quality, though. It looks like the Reconyx HP2W or WP9 might be good for your purposes.

Good luck!

Thank you all very much for your recommendations, they are very helpful. I will definitely try some of the proposed cameras!

If you need quantiative information the key question is how reliably they will trigger with a bat in your prefered target area - second question is whether the camera placed close to your target can take a clear enough picture of the bat for your purposes

We catch plenty of occassional pictures with bats but usually triggered by something else - at sites where the bats are probably circulating continuously for hours and never triggering the cameras. For larger species we're increasingly using the triggered video options to try and better understand why photographs were triggered / enhance the information coming back from the device - often you see an empty still image only to note the associated video showing an ungulate turning back into frame a number of seconds later.

Also - not all brands will focus close - a current tree squirrel project needs the cameras

In my experience Cuddeback attack model is much better any other camera.

As Fernando M. Contreras Moreno said, Pantheracam v.6 camera traps work well for bats. I have lots of records and I believe I have them in the normal sensitivity setting. The bright flash makes good still pictures, you should be "careful" with distance so you don´t "burn" the photos. Identification at least to guild or genera is possible, even species if they are conspicuous, some are difficult if similar e.g. Artibeus spp. as you don´t have measures from the arm.

Are you going to be monitoring single flowers? I have never used Pantheracam and have also heard good things about Cuddebac as stated. we have lots of experience with Reconyx and Bushnell. You can pay extra for Reconyx to adjust focal distance of camera-we have them set to 3-5 feet to capture high quality nighttime IR images for small terrestrial mammals (the highest quality we have found but more expensive). The camera being close to target will increase their detection probability for small mammals. Reconyx also has one of the fastest trigger speeds to capture fast moving animals. You can have them increase sensitivity settings for very small mammals but be careful as this can also result in an abundance of false triggers from moving vegetation etc. Unless in a very controlled setting (like under bridge or in cave), I would not do this. White flash would be best for picture quality but we cannot use at our sites for fear of camera theft....may also influence bat activity? we place a piece of electrical tape over part of the flash bulbs to reduce the amount of light so that close up night photos are not overexposed...just need to play with this. Other options you might consider are taking nightly video or using time-lapse mode to take many pictures throughout the night....more reviewing but less chance for problematic variation in detection probabilities among cameras that could result in incorrect conclusions if not careful.

Sarina, Is it really necessary to use trap cameras? I have experience working with bat pollination in cactus and other plants and we used video cameras. Also, I have worked with mammals inventories and you can find some cheap video cameras with much better resolution and speed. Just need to be patient and use tow or three cameras.

Article Seasonal Changes in Populations of Nectar Feeding Bats in th...

good luck!

Maleni

If you need to have closer focus for any wildlife, including bats, then for almost all trap cameras you need to modify the lens. One option is add a further lens over the original lens (one that stays in place but can be easily removed when not needed). Have a look here: http://www.monitorcameras.com.au/index.php/accessories for an example. And here for examples of using such lenses, including field tests: http://www.ronburyswildlife.com/2013/04/close-focusing-with-acorn-5210a-trail.html Alternatively you might be able to modify the focus of the original lens on a Ltl Acorn camera (see here: http://www.ronburyswildlife.com/2013/05/ltl-acorn-5210-and-6210-close-focus.html) though this is obviously a task for the brave. Good luck and please post back here on what you decide to do.

Hello Sarina,

I used "X‑Change™ Color Model 1279" camera at a semi-arid landscape with 100ft Flash Range (+ ~60ft sensor range), where we captured numerous bats. But, I wonder how it will work in other landscapes.

You might check this model too.

Cheers

Dev

Hi Sarina, if you need practical help you may phone back (0431 21090404).We have adopted many different camera traps (Cuddeback, Reconyx, Moultrie, SpyPoint, Maginon,...) for small mammal detection and are convinced, that any model can produce good photos even on short distances, as long as a) the animal stays some moments in front of the camera (duration is depending onthe model) b) you adopt the device (open it and turn the lens appr. 90° counterclockwise to reduce the focal distance to appr. 0,3 - 0,5 m). All the best, Björn

It's incredibly hard to work with bats in the wild using camera traps. Most successful field researchers prefer to use custom-made systems composed of cameras, triggers, and sensors. I suggest talking to Prof. Tschapka, from Ulm University (Germany), who gets very nice results: https://www.uni-ulm.de/en/nawi/bio3/apl-prof-dr-marco-tschapka/.

We use cameras with night vision coupled with portable batteries to record flowers over periods of 24 hours in Africa. It has recorded some bats, but bat identification through images is always problematic to certain extant.

In my experience Cuddeback digital trap camer C1-1279 model is best for your study.

Hirakawa, H. 2005. Luring bats to the camera -- a new technique for bat surveys. Mammal Stusy, 30:69-71.

Hirakawa, H. and K. Maeda. 2006. A technique to estimate the approximate size of photographed bats.  Wildlife Society Bulletin 34:2, 413-418.