To promote the study, it is sending out 13,000 door drops to households in the area between 1 and 8 June, delivered by Royal Mail.

The in-house-created campaign tells people how to join in with the bat survey, either by recording any sightings on a postcard or online at the Perth and Kinross Council ‘bat page’. It also offers free training on how to use a bat detector and how to look for and identify the creatures. Bat detectors will be loaned out as part of the survey.

‘We hope to get every square kilometre in the city of Perth surveyed for bats.  If we succeed it will be the first time a city has been “bat blitzed” in this way,’ said Anne Youngman, Scottish Bat Officer at the BCT.

The project will result in the creation of a ‘bat hotspots’ map, and the information will feed into the Tayside Biodiversity Action Plan and local planning office, as well as the National Biodiversity Network and Local Biodiversity Record Centre.

The BCT is the only national organisation devoted to the conservation of bats and their habitats in the UK.