Social calls of the Soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus)

Recordings from 2020 to 2026

The following snippits contain type (A,) B, C and D social calls emitted from within the maternity roost after a soprano pipistrelle entered. The last snippit shows unusual upward-sloping echolocation of this species (Russ, 2021).

Date of recordings: 2026-06-02          Recorded by: Sarah Mahie, Sander Boersma          Audio files: 1141792, 1141790 (Batlogger), 1141772 (Echo Meter)

These type C social calls in the first row of snippits were recorded while soprano pipistrelles were leaving their maternity roost. The type D social calls, their typical 3-component variants, in the second row of snippits were recorded on forest paths nearby the roost.

Date of recording: 2020-05          Recorded by: Zoogdierenwerkgroep Zuid-Holland          Audio file: Download here

The following type C social calls (the first three snippits) were recorded in the vicinity of the maternity roost and the type D social calls (the last, fourth, snippit) was recorded in a different area, close to forest, though still nearby the roost.

Date of recording: 2026-05-27          Recorded by: Sarah Mahie          Audio files: 1138474, 1138475

The following example is an advertising male, emitting type D social calls while in flight. Fourteen social calls are present in the recording.

Date of recording: 2024-09-20          Recorded by: Sjoerdtje de Boer          Audio file: 1008590 

A year later at the same location as the previous recording, an advertising male was recorded again. This time a few 4-component variants of the social call were pesent as well along side their ususal 3-component variants. A social call that was partially joined-up was also recorded.

Date of recording: 2025-08-31          Recorded by: Sarah Mahie, Boaz van Die          Audio file: 1034292, 1034293, 1034294, 1034296 (Batlogger), 1034301, 1034302 (Echo Meter)

The first snippit shows a type D social call with all components joined-up, forming a trill. The second snippit shows what appears to be a high-frequency type C social call.

Date of recordings: 2025-06-22          Recorded by: Sarah Mahie          Audio files: 1008689

Echolocation calls of the Daubenton's bat and common pipistrelle are also present in the following recordings. These type C (first two snippits) and type D (last four snippits) social calls were recorded near a lake where the bats of a known maternity colony were foraging. The type D social calls of the soprano pipistrelle can be differentiated from the common pipistrelle by their higher end frequency, which is around 20 kHz.

Date of recording: 2026-05-21          Recorded by: Sarah Mahie          Audio file: 1136426, 1136475, 1136476, 1136477, 1138212, 1138214, 1146632, 1146635

All recordings are licensed under the following Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 license and in courtesy of Sarah Mahie. 
All sonograms are screenshots of the recordings imported in the ultrasound analysis software BatExplorer 2.2 (Elekon, Switzerland). 

 

Bibliography:

- Jamaul, R. & Barataud, M. (2018). GraphB v1.8. http://geoeco.fr/ecologie_acoustique/en/appli_graph 
- Neil Middleton, Andrew Froud and Keith French (2022). Social Calls of the Bats of Britain and Ireland. Second edition. Pelagic Publishing.
- Jon Russ (2021). Bat Calls of Britain and Europe: a Guide to Species Identification. Pelagic Publishing.