Bat cam: Streaming video reveals secret life of colony at Land Trust site in Hempfield

They only come out at night.

Still, the Westmoreland Land Trust has shed some light on the lives of close to 50 bats that inhabit an old barn at its Hempfield nature park — thanks to some flexible cameras and ultrasonic detectors provided by trust board member Bill Powers.

For more than a decade, the Murrysville resident has treated the public to intimate views of bald eagle nests in the Pittsburgh area. Wildlife cameras from his company, PixCams Inc., have fascinated online viewers with live images of the paired birds’ parenting efforts.

This year, Powers expanded his focus to include a colony of the big brown bat species at the trust’s Schwarz farm-turned-park.

At 8:15 p.m. Friday, the public will be invited to the farm to learn about the bats and join in observation of the nocturnal creatures as they depart the barn to feed on insects.

Unlike other species he’s documented with a livestream, Powers discovered the mother bats frequently will relocate to different areas of the barn ceiling as they look to maintain an ideal summer temperature for them and their young pups — somewhere between 80 degrees and 95 degrees.

“They try to pick a location that’s perfect for them,” Powers said. “They have to be warm, but not too warm. The barn gives them a lot of opportunities to move, to adjust to the correct temperature when they’re roosting.

“It’s so dynamic. The hardest thing is to figure out where they are in the morning,” after the mother bats return from a night of hunting beetles, moths or other insects.

So, Powers installed pan-tilt cameras high in the barn that he can control remotely, allowing him to turn the lens and zoom in to search for the bats.

Unique footage of bats

He believes he’s broken ground with the battery-operated “bat cams” that are running around the clock. He’s captured and shared online images of a bat giving birth in early June and others later nursing their new pups.

“That was quite incredible to see that happen,” Powers said. “We got some amazing footage. It’s something people really haven’t seen before.

“We don’t think anyone before has ever livestreamed a bat colony in its natural setting to YouTube, especially a bat birth. Having this opportunity was just fantastic.”

One of Powers’ cameras caught a life-and-death struggle involving the bats and a black snake. Managing to slither all the way to a lofty barn beam, the snake attempted to make a lunch of one of the bats.

“It took three swipes until it grabbed one of the bats,” Powers said. “It tried to constrict it for probably 40 to 45 minutes, but the bat kept stretching its wings out and the snake couldn’t swallow it.”

One of the largest of North American bat species, the big brown bat has a wingspan of a foot to 16 inches.

Land Trust officials weren’t sure of the injured bat’s fate after it dropped to the barn floor.

Powers has captured more than images of the bats. He’s rigged up an ultrasonic microphone to record the sounds normally beyond human hearing that the bats generate as they use echolocation to search for insects.

He is able to process the bat calls to create a visual representation of their frequency while also lowering them to a level that is audible to human ears.

“It’s like a ticking sound,” he said of the modified bat signal.

Powers will continue to monitor the Schwarz bats as they continue part of their annual life cycle.

The male bats, who strike out on their own during the summer, eventually will reunite with the females to breed — before the entire colony relocates to a cave or other cooler dwelling to hibernate for the winter.

Powers is anxious to see if any of the maturing pups investigates a bat box installed on the barn’s outer wall and maybe moves in there to expand the colony next season.

“I’m told they’re pretty curious,” he said.

A local Girl Scout group constructed bat boxes to provide potential housing for the winged mammals at the Schwarz farm and at the Land Trust’s St. Xavier Nature Preserve along Route 30 in Unity. Powers modified the boxes at the Schwarz site to accommodate more livestream cameras.

Eye on swallows

Powers has additional cameras in place to track the behavior of about 20 pairs of swallows that are nesting in the Schwarz barn’s lower level.

It’s a continuation of cameras he began installing three years ago at the St. Xavier site. Those devices have captured images of wildlife including house wrens, bluebirds and squirrels.

Powers believes his equipment could provide valuable data for researchers who want to learn more about the local bat population.

Paula Purnell, a master naturalist and coordinator of educational programming for the Land Trust, has offered nature-related programs for children in local public schools. She’s hoping to develop an educational curriculum based on Powers’ bat observations.

“I want to get kids looking more closely at what’s right outside their back door,” said Purnell. “Bats are one of those things that are around if you look for them.

“Once you know they’re there, then you get interested in stewardship and conservation. But the first step is to get people to notice.”

Powers said he would like to make the bat livestream available through the Land Trust website, westmoreland-landtrust.org.

For now, they can be viewed — along with feeds from Powers’ wildlife cameras at other area sites, by visiting pixcams.com.