Atascadero coffee house to host ‘bat chat’
–Dark Nectar, located at 5915 Entrada, Atascadero, will once again host a North Inland Bat Chat (aka Bat Café) on Tuesday, March 19. The meeting will start at 5:30 p.m. and end at 7 p.m. The public is welcome to attend – of course, an interest in bats is not mandatory, but it would certainly make sense – along with bat biologists, natural historians, and especially, curious types interested in participating in citizen science helping to conduct bat surveys and take part in “bat blitzes.”
Bat Cafés have become a major format for local bat biologists and bat enthusiasts to gather in a friendly venue to discuss recent scientific studies, current issues, and topics of local interest relating to bats, for example, the importance of bats to local agriculture.
The 19 April meeting will focus on three major topics:
1) Citizen science and the “bat blitz”
2) A species profile of a locally occurring bat species, including, for example, a physical description of the species, its diet, how it flies, how it communicates, where it is active in winter,
3) Springtime for bats
The North Inland Bat Chat is an outreach program of the Paso Robles-based non-profit Central Coast Bat Survey (https://centralcoastbatsurvey.org). Bat chat sessions are currently led by Bat Survey Director, Bill Haas a 30-year veteran of bat studies in the United States and Central America and currently an at-large board member of the Western Bat Working Group, the largest bat research association in western North America. If you’re Interested in (or finding out about) bat blitzes, citizen science, bat biology, and local bat biologists, this will be a great opportunity to learn about all of these.
