Bats

Waiting...

I was pretty excited about going for the bat cruise in Austin. The photos online looked fantastic. 

On Capital Cruise Boat

On Sunday, at around 6:30PM we got the place where the cruise begins and climbed into our boat. The boat ride was interesting. The guide (also the captain) regaled us with random Austin facts and facts about the wildlife on the lake. The lake we were on is a man made lake, from the Colorado river. This actually bothered me, because I know how the Colorado river is diverted several time along its course for our needs and now doesn't even make it to the ocean. Where once, a delta of the river existed, now there is desert. Sad. 

Most of the birds on the river prey on the bats we had come to see. This is why the bats live only in the Congress Avenue Bridge. The spaces under the bride, an inch wide, are big enough for the tiny bats to fit through, but its predators are too big for those spaces. The bats are safe there and are consequently seen on none of the other bridges. 

The spaces under Congress Avenue Bridge where the bats spend the day

We cruised around the lake for about an hour, before we came back to the Congress Avenue Bridge to wait for the bats to emerge. The emerge once the sun sets, and fly east (away from the setting sun) to hunt for food. 1.5 million bats line in that one bridge! The are sooo closely packed in the spaces under the bridge that 90% of them never touch concrete!! 

The bats, that night, emerged once the sun had fully set and it was dark outside. The impressive sights that google promised, were not for us to enjoy, unfortunately. We did see bats emerge, but since it was dark, we could only spot a few at a time. What I enjoyed the most was watching them fly over the tree line. I could see the biggest groups then. 

We left, disappointed, and badly bitten by mosquitoes. The boat ride was pretty, and we got a good view of the Austin skyline. But, the magnificence of 1.5 million bats emerging to hunt, wasn't for us to enjoy that evening.

Austin Skyline