Upon purchasing six AudioMoth units, selecting a couple of recording sites, conducting some research on them and developing a recording strategy with year 7 students, we were ready for deployment of the recording units in mid April.
To this end, the AudioMoth units were equipped with fully charged rechargable batteries at 2000mAh each and a 128GB SDHC card, configured to record at 96kHz (all but one, which was configured to record at 384kHz in a location know to be home to bats). To economise on storage space, we decided to limit recording times to the following time intervals:
- Sunrise (& Dawn): 4:30 - 6:30 → morning dawn chorus
- Midday (Peak of the sun) 13:00-14:00
- Sunset (& Dusk): 20:00 - 22:00 → Night active animals (bats)
The recording stations were then deployed in the following locations:
- Alpengarten
- Private garden in Villach
- Private plot near Finkensteiner Moor
- Wernberger Teich owned by Natuschutzjugend
From left to right: Peter Winkler, Lukas Hutter and Erika Winkler (president of Alpengarten). Not in the picture: Marco Pernul, who kindly helped with the initial contact and setup.