The 750,000 female Mexican free-tailed bats and their adoring audience
You can paddle board, or kayak or take a river boat cruise, OR you can stand for two hours on the pedestrian walkway on the Congress Ave Bridge in Austin, to see the bats emerge from under the bridge at dusk. The pregnant females arrive in March, and over the next few months they give birth to their pups, increasing the population to 1.5 million. They stay till November when they return to Yucatán and Mexico City, Mexico. We enjoyed the one hour "bat cruise", it was a terrific way to see this natural phenomenon.
@365karly1@mittens@bkbinthecity@gijsje@carole_sandford Thank you for your comments! @claudiet Honestly I completely failed at photographing the bats in flight. They come out from under the bridge in waves, not all at once. I just wasn't able to get a clearly focused shot of them. I may post one of my flight photos just so everyone can have a laugh! The only thing the boat captain said was to not look up when she went under the bridge, about 30 minutes before they flew. We could hear the bats chatter, a really cool sound. I loved the whole experience!
Fascinating account of this phenomenon Lou Ann, I know youndidnt catch the bats actually flying but the story & the row of people on the bridge makes a great photo!
I've heard so much about the bats in Austin for so many years but I've never been there to witness them emerge from under the bridge at dusk. San Antonio is only an hour away from Austin so it would be so easy to plan a trip for this special event. Your fantastic photo has inspired me . . . I think I'll put it at the top of my "to do" list for when I return to San Antonio in October. I found lots of cool YouTube videos of the Austin bat spectacle and I wanted to share this one with you . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwWGvf38TVM
@happypat@gamelee@cindymc Thank you for your great comments and favs! @gaylewood By October the number of bats will have doubled from what I saw last week! It is an amazing experience!
@happypat I do have quite a few photos of the flight but the bats are blurry. I'm trying to get up my courage to go ahead and share one of the blurry shots! It will give everyone a laugh!
@dide @littleconnie @gilbertwood @maggiemae This is something I've wanted to do for years, finally got to enjoy it! It really is quite something.
@claudiet Honestly I completely failed at photographing the bats in flight. They come out from under the bridge in waves, not all at once. I just wasn't able to get a clearly focused shot of them. I may post one of my flight photos just so everyone can have a laugh! The only thing the boat captain said was to not look up when she went under the bridge, about 30 minutes before they flew. We could hear the bats chatter, a really cool sound. I loved the whole experience!
@gaylewood By October the number of bats will have doubled from what I saw last week! It is an amazing experience!