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Red Bats and Red Tomatoes!

“These tomatoes are almost as red as my fur! Looks like they are ready to be eaten!”- Gabe the red bat

This season’s garden is a hit! Our flight cage is bursting with summer colors as our cherry tomatoes ripen, and our eastern red bats enjoy pampering from volunteers. The garden growing within the flight cage offers a natural, and energized environment for our bats. By attracting moths, the garden allows bats to practice their predatory skills during flight. Offering bats in rehabilitation an opportunity to exercise behaviors that are necessary to survival in the wild make the flight cage and the bat garden an important part of our rehabilitation process. An appreciation for the summer crop is shared by the bats and also our volunteers, who enjoy snacking on sweet, refreshing cherry tomatoes while working hard in the summer heat

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Baby Bat or Baby Dragon?

Red Bat Puppy Wing!

Everyone at Austin Bat Refuge is celebrating the arrival of baby bat season! Our intern Kyndal was welcomed into her second summer of baby bat rehabilitation training yesterday. Just as she got to work in the flight cage, a red bat pup waived a warm “hello” from beneath her protective mother. Look at that fragile little wing! Kyndal wasn’t sure if she was looking at a bat or a baby dragon…

 

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Our first red bat pups of 2017!

Here we go!  First red bat pups of the year!
The official (and earliest ever) start of our busiest season.
Three weeks earlier than 2016; one week earlier than 2015; two and a half weeks earlier than 2014.

This red bat mum was rescued by Selma and although one of her wings is pretty torn up, the pups seem to be doing fine.  Great save Selma!
Here’s the best look we could get without disturbing her.


She’s been hanging by one foot and has her pups clenched to her breast with her tails wrapped around them.
Classic red bat pose!

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It’s in North Texas …. the fungus that causes White-nosed Syndrome

We’re obviously devastated by the news that the fungus that causes WNS has arrived in Texas.  We, like everyone else here, had hoped for a little more time, but we knew it was coming.  Although this is just the fungus, not yet the disease, we are nonetheless tweaking our rehabilitation protocols and stand ready to collaborate with state and federal agencies, and other Texas bat rehabilitators in monitoring and providing supportive care for Texas bats.
https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20170323c&nrtype=all&nrspan=2017&nrsearch=

 

austin bat Texas bats WNS

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Texas Night Sky Festival 2017

We had a blast at the Texas Night Sky Festival on Saturday March 18th.
We met so many people and introduced them all to Buffy, Gabe, Freida, and Nikita.
It was so much fun to see all those smiling faces.
Thanks Kyndal Irwin for spending the last day of SXSW with us out in Dripping Springs!
You were so great with all those kids!  We’re proud to know you!

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Local Bat Squad Wins First Place in Lego Challenge!

Laurel Mountain FLL team researches bats, wins best ‘Animal Allies’ project

A project focused on bats and a possible solution to the Zika Virus led the “Batter Up” First Lego League (FLL) team from Laurel Mountain Elementary School to win the Best Project Award at the latest FLL competition in December 2016.

The team consists of Laurel Mountain fourth-grade students Ram Sivaraman, Naithruv Kashyap, Tanvi Reddy, Kael Kanudson and Adam Menezes and fifth-grade students Michael Rao and Matthew Rao. The group began the research project in August 2016 as part of the FLL Animal Allies challenge, which tasked students to present projects that explained how animals and humans help each other.

“Bats play a vital role in pollinating our crops since bees and hummingbirds are active only during the day,” Niathurv said. “Bats also eat mosquitoes and many other insects and prevent many mosquito-borne viruses such as malaria, yellow fever and Zika.”

The team visited the bat colony at the South Congress Bridge in Austin and met with a bat specialist from Bat Conservation to understand threats bats face in Austin. As the team learned that the bats’ habitats are decreasing, renovating a bat house became part of the project, which they donated to the Zilker Botanical Garden. The team also built a website to report bat sightings to track bat movement in Central Texas.

“The ‘Batter Up’ team completed months of research and enriched our students’ knowledge on the importance of bats as part of the FLL project,” Laurel Mountain Principal Jan Richards said. “It’s inspiring to see our students take initiative to share their knowledge to better our community and environment.”

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