Fieldwork means having all the equipment in place to record the animals (in my case bats) when I see them. I try to look at the audio as soon as they're recorded to check if the settings are okay. I can't check every single recording and optimise settings in real time as this would be too cumbersome , and my presence may interfere with the animal's activity.

How do I know my audio is 'good enough'. I only do the basic checks of 'Is there clipping/saturation?' and 'Is the signal visible on the waveform'.

I tried looking for resources that have a checklist of 'things to look out for' but can't find any. This knowledge seems to be very word-of-mouth. Would anyone mind sharing their own 'field-recording checklists' or any workflows out there?