Valentine’s Day free-tail

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It’s a Happy Valentine’s Day for this little male Mexican free-tailed bat! He came to us from our friends at Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation in Kendalia, TX and he’s now flying free under the Congress Avenue Bridge, in plenty of time for mating season!

Wild Austin Yellow

Wild Austin yellow (click on link to left for video)

This northern yellow bat (Lasiurus intermedius) was blown out of an Austin palm tree in yesterday morning’s cold gusty winds. In the video, we see her using her feet to help control her “prey”, in this case, hand-fed mealworms. Although it’s hard to hear in the video, the yellow bats in our care have been the noisiest chewers imaginable. We can hear them down the hall in another room as they demolish their dinner!

Resistivity testing at Bracken Cave

Looking back on this adventure from 23Jan2016. What an amazing experience to get to go all the way back into Bracken Cave.

The view from the floor of the maternity dome up to the ceiling is like being in a cathedral! Home to the largest aggregation of mammals on the planet in summer months, on this cold winter day we saw only a single bat flying through the dim light from the mine shaft.

Thanks so much Fran for letting us participate!

Resistivity testing at Bracken Bat Cave. Using electrical implulses to find the deepest guano deposits. Old testing had depth of 36 meters, now with longer infinity cable, preliminary results showed guano depth of over 45 meters! Core sampling at these depths would give us 10,000 year old DNA of bats, their insect prey, and even grains of pollen from the plants the insects were eating!

1-25-2016 7-53-48 AM map