County firsts!

First county records can sometimes be like London buses. You wait in vain for ages, and then two or sometimes three come along all at once!

This is certainly the case this year with bats in Brecknock (Vice County 42). First we have the discovery of a serotine bat, Eptesicus serotinus, by David Lewns in a tree near Llyswen. The animal in question was identified by examination of its skull, the bat having been dead for some time. The serotine has troubled bat workers in the area for many years. The first Welsh record for the species comes from Vice County 43, Radnorshire as long ago as 1985, when John Messenger found a pregnant female at Penybont. The species has been heard a number of times on bat detectors around Hay-on-Wye and Abernant, but in these cases we either couldn’t be sure which side of the river they were on, or they were heterodyne identifications, not sufficiently good enough to be used as county records.

Hot on the heels of the first serotine comes another apparent first for Brecknock with a time expansion recording of Nathusius’s pipistrelle, Pipistrellus nathusii, near Bwlch. Time expansion recording preserves all the characteristics of a bat echo-location call and the recordings can be fed into a computer, producing a sonogram for analysis. In this case the recording was made by Diane Morgan, the co-ordinator for Brecknock Bat Group. The record in this case was verified by John Messenger.

Nathusius’s pipistrelle is a relative newcomer to Wales. The first record for the species comes from 1994, when Bob Stebbings confirmed the presence of one at Stackpole, Pembrokeshire (Vice County 45). There were no further records for the species in Wales until 2002 when literally within days of each other Ian Davidson-Watts and I recorded this large pipistrelle at two widely separated locations. I got mine at Skenfrith Castle (Monmouthshire, VC35) and Ian got his at Margam Park, Glamorganshire (VC41). Since then I have also recorded the species at Hensol Castle (Glamorganshire) in 2004.

So, two new county firsts in short order, or is it…you know when you think that you’ve gotten to the bottom of something and then someone says ah…but. Well I was just finishing this article off in the office when Robert, who does out time expansion recording analysis, was going through some old discs left on one side from the summer of 2006. There in amongst these recordings was a very clear sonogram for a Nathusius’s pipistrelle from Halfway. Now Diane was again the recorder, so no problem there. However, we just need to check which side of the county line it was, Brecknock, or Carmarthenshire (VC44)…see what I mean, nothing for ages and then….

Phil Morgan

County Mammal Recorder, Brecknock (VC42)