Bat Study at Soldiers Delight!

Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc. was thrilled to have researcher and university student Sadie Rozics give a presentation at our January board meeting on a study of bat populations at Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, which she conducted over the summer of 2025. Sadie's research project, Baseline Assessment of Bat Occupancy and Foraging Activity Across Habitat Types in Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, Maryland, was conducted to fulfill requirements for her BS in animal behavior, which she will receive in the summer of 2026 from the School of Biological Sciences at Aberdeen University in Scotland.

A native of Baltimore County, Sadie was motivated to conduct a bat study at SDNEA as her undergraduate thesis project because she wanted to collaborate with an organization in her home state of Maryland so that her work could be mutually beneficial to the county and state she calls home. It was her way of giving back to the community where she grew up and furthering scientific study at the same time.

Sadie's goals for her project were threefold: to promote understanding of how bats currently use SDNEA to help inform future conservation management decisions at Soldiers Delight, to create a baseline ecological indicator of bat ecosystem health and habitat quality, and as a baseline for future studies to determine how Maryland bat populations fare as they face threats from white nose syndrome and habitat loss. She collaborated with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife & Heritage Program to use non-invasive ultrasonic detectors to acoustically monitor bat types and quantities, placing four of them in strategically-varied positions throughout the Soldiers Delight habitat.

To Sadie's delight, the monitors detected a range of bat species across Soldiers Delight’s meadow, pond, and riparian woodland habitats. Her analysis of the bat echolocation activity recorded by the acoustic monitors revealed that these habitats are essential for conservation. The big brown bat and eastern red bat were the most frequently detected species. A variety of less common species were also heard, which Sadie said is a great indicator of local biodiversity.

A synopsis of Sadie's project was published October 21, 2025, on the Maryland DNR website. Her research shows that Soldiers Delight plays an important role for bats in central Maryland and opens the door for future research on how less common species utilize the area. Her presentation to the SDCI board of directors in January was fascinating and enlightening. Bats have never been studied at Soldiers Delight before and their relationship to serpentine ecosystems is poorly understood, so this was important research on many levels, for both bats and for Soldiers Delight.