A Devon project dedicated to conserving one of the county’s most endangered animals is now appealing for volunteers to help it in its vital work.

Find out about the bats on your doorstep. This spring and summer, people across Devon can take part in a major scientific bat survey run by the Devon Greater Horseshoe Bat Project.

The survey allows volunteers to borrow a detector from one of 20 monitoring centres dotted around the county, to place in a selected one kilometre grid square for three nights. All the calls recorded will be used to increase knowledge of how bats are using the Devon landscape, and what can be done to help them.

Anyone can get involved in the survey – no experience is needed and full instructions are supplied.

The Devon Bat Survey 2017 will go live for bookings on Tuesday, March 21.

The project is especially keen for people to get involved around Combe Martin, Great Torrington, Okehampton, Chulmleigh, Otterton, Tiverton and Dartington, where it has new monitoring centres for 2017.

Project manager Ruth Testa said: "Knowledge of how bats are using our landscape is key to protecting them. This survey allows us to gain information across a huge part of the county, and will let you find out what bats are using your local area."

The Devon Greater Horseshoe Bat Project is a five year partnership project of 18 organisations led by Devon Wildlife Trust. It is supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, as well as other funders.

The project aims to secure the future of the greater horseshoe bat in Devon - the northern European stronghold of this highly threatened mammal. To do this the project is working with landowners and communities to raise awareness and to improve habitats, as well as running research programmes like the Devon Bat Survey to increase understanding of bat species.

To find out more about how you can get involved, and to choose a square, please visit www.devonbatproject.org/devon-bat-survey .