Why should I use night vision to carry out bat surveys?

Night vision technology has become an indispensable tool for bat ecologists. Bright lighting will disturb and potentially drive away bats, so using night vision cameras is an easy way to make sure that all the bats are seen but not disturbed.

Night Vision for Bat Surveys: Why Ecologists Rely On It

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Anyone running a licensed bat survey needs a way to observe roosts and commuting routes without disturbing the animals they're monitoring. Bright torchlight drives bats away and can invalidate a survey; night vision solves that problem, which is why it's become the standard tool for professional ecologists in the UK.

Why bats matter

Bats make up around a fifth of all mammal species worldwide, and every species found in the UK is a microbat: small, mostly insectivorous, and navigating by echolocation rather than sight. Because they're such effective natural pest control and such a sensitive indicator of habitat health, bats and their roosts are protected by law in the UK.

Do you need a bat survey?

Before any development work goes ahead in the UK, the developer needs to consider whether the work is likely to affect bats or their roosts. Bats forage and commute over wide areas, so their presence isn't limited to obvious roost sites. Skipping a survey where one's needed can hold up planning permission significantly, so most ecologists treat it as a necessary step rather than an optional extra.

Why night vision for bat surveys

Night vision has gone from a nice-to-have to a near-essential tool for bat ecologists. Because it doesn't rely on visible light, it lets surveyors watch roost activity and commuting behaviour without disturbing it, which means more accurate counts and a clearer picture of how bats are actually using a site.

The Bat Conservation Trust's most recent technical guidance backs this up, recommending night vision and infrared as best practice for improving survey accuracy. You can read the BCT's Bat Survey Guidelines (4th edition) in full, and we've also summarised what the guidelines mean in practice in our post on the BCT bat emergence survey night vision guidelines 2026.

Choosing the right night vision for a bat survey

Most surveyors now use dedicated night vision cameras rather than trail cameras. They let you watch the roost live as bats emerge, while recording the full session for review on a laptop afterwards, which matters when you're running several cameras across a site. Nightfox has worked directly with bat ecologists for several years to build devices around their specific needs: first the Nightfox Red, then the Whisker, and now the Nova.

The Nightfox Nova is our most popular device for bat ecologists. It's built around a wide 55° field of view, extendable to 70° with the detachable wide-angle lens, paired with a high-resolution sensor recording at 60fps. HDMI out lets you run the image to a remote field monitor, and the audio-in jack syncs your bat detector audio straight to the video for analysis. Recording is HD with timestamp, and a 64GB SD card is included in the box. It also mounts to a standard tripod, which matters for long static roost watches.

The Nightfox Whisker remains a strong option too, particularly for surveyors who want a smaller, more compact handheld unit. If you're deciding between the two, our Nova vs Whisker comparison breaks down which device suits which survey style.

You'll also want an IR illuminator alongside your night vision aid to get the best possible picture. Most surveyors go with one or the other of these two options: the Nightfox Arc infrared floodlight is more powerful and covers a wider area, making it well suited to lighting a roost entrance or emergence point; the Nightfox XB5 Pro 850nm infrared torch is a smaller, more compact unit that's easier to move around a site.

Practical tips for a night vision bat survey

Set up before dusk and let your eyes and equipment settle before bats start emerging; roost emergence timing is your critical window.

Use a tripod mount for static roost watches rather than handheld, since several hours of handheld observation isn't practical and increases the risk of movement disturbing footage.

Keep some distance between your IR illuminator and your night vision aid (NVA). Separating them helps the shadow of a bat sit apart from the bat itself in the image, and reduces noise interference from the illuminator being picked up in your footage.

Sync a bat detector to your device's audio input where available, so acoustic and visual records line up during analysis.

Keep IR illumination to the minimum needed for a clear image; more light doesn't mean a better result and can behave differently depending on the site.

Back up footage from the SD card as soon as you can after each survey night, to reduce the chance that footage is lost. Copying a full night's recording takes time, so factor that into your survey routine.

What bat survey footage actually looks like

The videos below show real-life footage from bat surveys, captured with the Nightfox Nova, the Whisker and the now-discontinued Red. The darker footage is recorded on a Nightfox red and is of rare Bechstein bats roosting deep underground.

Bechstein bat, footage captured with Nightfox Red

This footage from a Nightfox Whisker shows the wide field of view and the detailed picture. It's able to capture a quick and small appearance of a bat in edge of the frame, it's even able to record the movement of the insects that bats feed on.

Get set up for your next survey

Whether you're after a wide-field handheld like the Whisker or a fully-loaded field monitor setup with the Nova, browse the full Nightfox ecology and bat survey collection to find the right kit for your next survey.