This little free-tailed bat was found on the ground by young Savannah, in the pasture in front of her house in Brenham, TX. She has a big heart and wanted to help the little guy, but knew not to pick him up with her bare hands. She got her mum and they used two sticks to put him in a box, then waited till night and placed him in a tree. He only stretched one wing, not the other, then fell out of the tree, so they recovered him and brought the little bat to us up in Austin.
When we examined him, we saw why he fell. He has a painful bruise on his left elbow! It does not appear to be fractured, however, so we think he’ll be just fine with plenty of rest and good food.
Great save Savannah! And thanks to your mum Ester and younger sister Kylie for bringing the bat to us for some TLC.
This was our 201st bat of 2017 so we call him 17-201, but Kylie says his name is Batman!
Follow Amy through her Costa Rican Adventure
Greetings earthlings,
My name is Amy Hall and I have been a volunteer with Austin Bat Refuge for almost a year now. I’ve fallen in love with their little faces and personalities. But the time has come for me to leave the country temporarily. As part of my Professional of Science Master’s in Environmental Management and Sustainability program, my last semester is a project-based internship of our choosing. A series of opportunities has led me to my project. Like Lee and Dianne said in their introductory post, I will be spending 10 weeks trekking across Costa Rica creating acoustic profiles of bats in areas of different land-use. I will be deploying full-spectrum Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter SM4 Recorders and using Kaleidoscope Pro to hopefully collect as much high quality data as possible, parse through it, and see what species or frequency guilds they can detect.
I will be with 4 or 5 other interns who are working on their own projects; from social research to water quality to primate behavior. All of our research is funded by the National Science Foundation.
I will be uploading blog post and picture updates probably once every week or two, depending on how busy I am and how good the internet connection is. Feel free to email me with questions (ahall6@stedwards.edu). While I am there I will not have any service except for Wifi when I am at the stations. So responses will likely lag.
I’m excited to share my experiences with you guys!
Amy is off to Costa Rica!
Our wonderful friend/intern/volunteer Amy Hall, is heading off to Costa Rica for three months of bat research!
She is working with Dr. Peter Beck from St. Edward’s University and Dr. Michael Wasserman from Indiana University, and her project will use acoustic sampling to determine presence/absence of bat species in various types of habitats around the country.
She will deploy Wildlife Acoustics SM4 (Song Meter) bat detectors and analyze the data using Kaleidoscope tropical acoustic call libraries.
We are so excited for her!
Please join us in wishing Amy all the best and follow her updates when internet connections become available.
No CenTex bat action
No Congress flight on Wed night 13Dec2017, despite warmer temps than previous evening when ~65k flew out of Congress.
Could this mean that the last hangers-on (~400k) finally moved south?
They had moved back up to Huber then came back to IH35 corridor. Maybe a full week of low temps in the upper 30sF finally convinced them?
Huber heading back to IH35 corridor
About 400k free-tailed bats left Huber Limestone Mine and headed back to Congress and McNeil on the first night after the SNOW! Calm winds – Temp 43F, Dew Point 36 F rising, but no precipitation.
We’re surprised to see them move on such a cold night. They must know there will be little food in the Hill Country after that freeze and that their best shot at finding insects will be in the Blackland Prairie and IH35 corridor. Will they majority finally migrate now? Or will they try to overwinter? We’ll see!
Giving Thanks
It’s Thanksgiving weekend at The Refuge and we’re taking stock of our blessings.
We are so lucky to be able to do this work and to share our lives with a community of like-minded people, who all help in their own way:
- Rescuers who take the time out of their busy lives to help a bat in distress.
- Volunteers who transport and help us care for these bats; they bring the love to The Refuge each and every day.
- Donors who provide the much-needed funding for tools and supplies.
- Supporters who root us on, both in person and through social channels, and who spread the word about the wonder of bats.
- Mentors who continue to share their knowledge and experience with us, and the opportunity to mentor others.
- The opportunity to contribute to current knowledge of bat ecology through our daily observations, and to share with our conservation colleagues in the scientific community.
- And the bats, who put their trust in us to do the right thing for them, patiently waiting until we figure out just what that might be.
The bats thank you all. They’re not much for saying so out loud, but we suspect that even the most curmudgeonly of them very much appreciate the loving care, until the day arrives that they can take care of themselves. They are our biggest blessing.
We are so grateful for all of these gifts.
Love,
Austin Bat Refuge
We will be doing a small ask for Giving Tuesday, to kick off our end of the year fundraising.
If you would like to share your blessings, please:
DONATE & Join the Bat Pack to keep the love flowing.
Pre-Migration Activity
Lots of Central Texas bat activity on a chilly evening. Devil’s Sinkhole, Old Tunnel, and Huber really show up strongly because of their more isolated locations. Still a strong flight from Congress, so our newly released bats have plenty of company.
Love the velifers!
This beautiful cave myotis (Myotis velifer) was hanging motionless in the same location for four days in the corner of Cait’s balcony. She was worried about him and was kind enough to contain him and have us check him out. He turned out to be just fine! We fed and hydrated him for a few days and released him tonight. Thanks for caring Cait!
Your Big Night, Girls
These two girls were rescued from separate Houston apartment complexes back in June. They’ve been with us all summer and have just now recovered their strength. The one on the left was not flying well just two weeks ago, but last week started sustaining flight and had the red “no-go” tag removed (actually red lip gloss on the ear). They’ll be so happy to be in the soft-release box; they can stay there until they find a great new home!
Bats prefer the Halloween Department
Latest research shows that 3 out of 4 Mexican free-tailed bats found in Saver’s Thrift Store prefer the Halloween department over other parts of the store. Even though bats have nothing to do with Halloween 😉 , they nonetheless provided holiday ambience as they hung decoratively up with the fake cobwebs up in the ceiling! The other was recovered from over the cash register area, so perhaps the last one was making sure they got paid for their advertising efforts!
They all were fine, just wondering why Savers keeps inviting them into the store and then freaking out about it. Humans!
Here are three of the four a few days later, ready to be released under Congress Avenue Bridge, as soon as F1 takes down the fences for their party at the bat-viewing area.
While they were resting up for their release, an immature Texas rat snake curled up under the roof tarp to stay dry and bask. He was within a few inches of one of the boys and would have had him for lunch but for the netting in between them. Watch out you valiant little bats!
Here’s the rat snake getting relocated a few miles down the creek.
Here they are finally getting released at Congress Avenue Bridge after their circuitous adventure!
