Happy free-tail
This free-tail is so happy to be flying again and catching moths around the blacklight!
Soon to be back in the wild skies.
Just look at that smile!
Month: September 2016
Toe whiskers
Here’s an angle rarely seen of a Mexican free-tailed bat. If you look closely you can see the long “whisker” hairs sticking out between the toes. “Kind of like you honey” a bridge visitor said to his girlfriend this summer, right before she hit him, hard.
Rough night for bats
Storms after emergences at Bracken, Congress, and McNeil had bats scrambling for cover last night.
David Chapman took care of hundreds in a parking garage in San Antonio this morning.
He stopped a custodian from sweeping bats off the ceiling onto the driveway inside the garage.
Great job David!
We got a call from Wilshire Homes in Pflugerville.
A bat took shelter in one of their homes under construction.
He apparently flew in an open garage door and went right in the house through the missing deadbolt lock on the door to the interior.
Alejandro, the superintendent, got him in a container for us and we went and picked him up about 23 miles north of our location.
He was a juvenile male free-tailed bat and had a full belly and looked to be in great shape. He drank water from a syringe and seemed bright eyed and full of life. We showed him the deadbolt hole; wonder what he thought about that.
Since he most likely came from the McNeil bridge colony, a mere 7 miles to the west, we decided to take him back there, rather than bring him all the way back to Austin and release him at a different roost at night. I bet he was wondering how we knew where he lived; probably thought he got hacked by Russians!
Well, he barely survived the episode. Releasing during the day is always risky and this time was no exception.
He flew off the hand and instead of quickly entering a crevice, he flitted around under the bridge looking for just the right crevice.
Two different grackles took shots at him and very nearly got him, but he managed to evade them and finally enter a crevice above the support structure.
So glad you made it buddy! We’ll wait till dark from now on, we promise!
Zonker’s dinner options
Zonker thought about dinner to go but decided on room service instead!
Doppler radar of Congress bats on the full moon
Congress Ave Bridge bats on the full moon
CAB bats head out to forage in the pasture land and agricultural fields between Bastrop and San Marcos on a full moon night.
They don’t seem to be deterred by the full moon, they are flying in big numbers even as the moon rises, although more seem to be staying within the city limits than usual.
One would think that Mexican free-tails would be lunar phyllic, since they feed in wide open spaces away from tree-loving owls and the moonlight might even allow them to better locate prey visually, before kicking in their echolocation when they get within range.
At this time of year (even on a wet year like this one) there is likely less insect prey in the agricultural fields and the bats are eagerly awaiting the reverse migration of the Corn Ear-worm Moth that usually starts in late September. CEM return south in the fall because their pupae can’t overwinter up north. Mexican free-tailed bats depend on this reverse moth migration to put on weight prior to the bats’ own migration south in late October.
Built for Speed
Mexican free-tailed bats are built for speed. Their long narrow wings are just one of the adaptations that rank them among the fastest bats.
They are, however, also remarkably agile in tight spaces. They use bone structure and muscle fibers to change their wing aspect ratio to short and broad, allowing high maneuverability when necessary.
Moth mystery
We’ve always wondered why every morning we find whole moths floating in the water of the drinking trough, in the bat garden. These are whole moths, not just the wings we would expect to find, when bats catch the moths, shuck the wings, and eat the rest.
So why so many whole, often live, moths in the water?
Here a Seminole bat controls a moth
Last night we finally got proof of what we suspected to be the reason.
We have a blacklight that attracts insects into the garden. It hangs from the center ridge of the aviary and is directly over the drinking pool. The pool is also situated in the center so that it collects the drips from the misters, which are also hung from the center ridge.
Our flight school bats fly in wide circles that are tangent to the light, so that they can catch any moth that happens to be flying at the wrong place at the wrong time. When they catch one, they curl up into a ball as they fly, to control the moth and bring it up to their mouths.
If one watches a moth circle under the light, within seconds a bat will zoom in and snatch the moth.
Last night we watched while evening bats did just that. 
But in between catches of fluttering moths, we noticed times where moths we were watching, just before a bat swooped in, would fold their wings and plummet downwards, splash-landing in the pool!
We have often heard of moths evolving defenses to counter the amazing bio-sonar the bats employ to hunt them. This arms race has been going on since bats developed echolocation around 25 million years ago, and has manifested in countless ways ever since. Some moth species have it hard-wired in their DNA that, upon hearing bat bio-sonar, their synapses fire in such a way that paralyzes their wings, causing them to plummet downward, away from the bats closing trajectory. This seems to work quite well, unless the moths just happen to be over our bat drinking trough!
So now we know why so many moths are found each morning in the pool! We just may move the light location so that these moths land in the garden instead, and rise once more to provide additional foraging opportunities for our bats as they hone their hunting skills. This will be a big benefit when we have a full house of bats in flight school, with not enough moths to go around.
We love these little insights that nightly observation provides in the aviary!
Summer Intern Graduates – 2016
Kyndal Irwin (& Zonker)
Kyndal is a sophmore at the University of Texas and taking a heavy course load in their College of Biological Sciences. Genetics and Bio-Statistics will serve her well in her career in bat work.
We love having her as part of the team!
Congratulations Austin Bat Girl, on completing the summer intern program at Austin Bat Refuge!
Your dedication went above and beyond a call of duty!
You are now an ABR Certified Bat Handler!
The loving care you gave the Bat Class of 2016 ensured they got the very best start to their new, wild lives.
Or, as you would put it, in your own inimitable way:
“After months of making a determined team, the bats and Austin Bat Refuge are proud to say, that together- WE DID IT! ”
This pup says “I’m ready to be released! Thanks for the help, humans!”
Tonight, many of our bats will return to a life in the wild! Get on with your bat self! We’ll miss you guys, thanks for all the fun!”
