Northern yellow female pup on left and a Southern yellow male pup on the right.
When full grown, the Northern yellow bat will be twice the size of the Southern.
When they are pups, the size is the same, but the color and texture of the fur distinguishes them.
The Northerns are sleeker and more blonde-colored.  The Southerns are woolier and more olive-colored.


One of our local species, the tri-colored bat is one of the smallest bats in North America.  They are amazingly agile in the air and this one has no trouble beating the larger bats to the flying insects in the aviary.


Sweet, early (8:33 pm) emergence at Congress Avenue Bridge last night.
Come visit us at the Austin Bat Refuge table on Friday nights this summer!


We keep all the bat families ID’d with varying types of marks, so we can track the 30 juveniles we have flying. This way we can make sure all pups are reunited with their mums in the morning to nurse through the day.

This pup is from the red bat family with yellow on their ears.  Even though he flies well, he returns to his mum to nurse during the day.  His two youngest brothers still do not fly, but soon all will be developing their hunting and drinking skills.  Once they are all up to speed we’ll release each family together, at least that’s our preference.  Sometimes the oldest and the mums get antsy and they let us know they are not willing to wait on the youngsters.  We monitor them closely and release as they let us know they are ready.

austin bat rescue education


We opened all the pup tents last night for the first time.  We played lifeguard for a while as the pups rolled out, some in flight and some on the ground!  We picked them up one after another to give them another chance to drop into flight.  All of them got it by the end of the night, but some were low on the flight cage walls in the morning.  We are so proud of them!

These two pups found their mum and here all are enjoying a nice breakfast

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We just took in our 103rd bat of the year, 39 of which came to us in the last 2 weeks.
June is always crazy around here and this year is no exception.
We’ve had bats of seven species this month; northern yellows, southern yellows, Seminoles, eastern reds, free-tails, velifers, and evening bats.

It’s crazy, exhausting, and exhilarating work.  But what a priviledge and an honor to be able to give these pups a second chance at life.

Reds 17-89

 

 


This pup was saved from a swimming pool skimmer by Jerry early Sunday morning.
He’s a juvenile Seminole bat, and was likely attempting to drink on his own for the first time when he crashed in the pool.  Once in the water he could not escape, even though Jerry had a ramp for trapped wildlife.  So please be like Jerry and have ramps, leave floaties in the water, and check those skimmers every morning. Give little beauties like Groot here a second chance!

https://www.amazon.com/Swimline-70200SL-FrogLog-Critter-Saving/dp/B004UHY2TY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497360924&sr=8-1&keywords=frog+log+critter+escape+ramp