Congress Avenue Bridge

Home of the World’s Largest Urban Bat Colony

(where the bat and human tectonic plates meet)

If you see a grounded bat, click this link for instructions.

Austin Bat Refuge provides direct care for the Official Flying Mammal of Texas.

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Last week’s flights

Bat Viewing Etiquette

1. Never handle a grounded bat. Should you find one, call Austin Bat Refuge immediately at 512-695-4116 or 512-799-8847.
2. Be kind, don’t shine bright lights.
3. Loud sounds or rhythmic clapping only serve to delay the flight even longer.
4. Keep drones at a distance; don’t get down in the stream of bats! (See City of Austin drone regulations.)

Choosing a viewing spot

There are three common spots for viewing the emergence: on top of the bridge, under the bridge on the north shoreline, and under the bridge on the southeast side. The southeast side (farthest from downtown) is our favorite spot to view the bats.

But please aware that conditions have deteriorated down along the shoreline. City of Austin Watershed has not allowed cutting of woody-stemmed plants, which have grown to obstruct the view. This has caused bat viewers to stomp down the fence to view the bats. DO NOT VENTURE OFF THE TRAIL! There are many trip hazards, such as slick rocks and pipes as well as old rebar poking out at odd angles. One could easily slip or trip, bang onto the rocks, and tumble into the water!

There seems to be little left of our work with The Trail Foundation. We enhanced this view back in 2020 by removing tall invasive shrubs and replanting with bunch grasses and acanthus, which should have provided great hummingbird activity before dark while not blocking views of the bats’ flight. It mostly got stomped out by bat watchers. We also had the City of Austin control the poison ivy that had grown on shrubs overhanging the trail and continue to monitor that situation.

Austin Bat Refuge volunteers assist The Trail Foundation in replanting the Congress Bridge shoreline—shovels up!

While the Bat Viewing Area on the south side of the bridge is the most ADA friendly, you’ll want to be down by the fence at the shoreline when the bats fly for a close-up view(the trail, however, can be rough for those with walkers). Don’t forget to check over the treeline to see if bats are going to altitude; this can be spectacular!

Families with children and/or pets are advised to watch the bats from underneath the bridge, as there are no traffic concerns there. But stay on the trail and do not venture past the fence!

The timing of the emergence matters when choosing the proper viewing location.

If you visit when the bats are flying before dark (less than 12 minutes after sunset), then the view from the top of the bridge, between the first and second light poles, allows you to see them fly down river.

If you visit when the bats are flying close to dark (more than 12 minutes after sunset), best viewing is from below the bridge at the south side bat viewing area. If you stand on top of the bridge or on the north side trail bridge, you may miss the bats since you’ll be looking at dark bats against dark water and/or a dark treeline.

Here’s when the bats generally fly at or after dark:

• Early May through mid-July
• Late September through October

When the bats are flying after dark, you’ll see 10 times more bats if you stand on the south bank of the river under the shadow of the bridge as the bats are lit up by streetlights while the bridge blocks the light from reducing your night vision. 

As you leave, the south end of the bridge near the parking lot offers an intimate view of bats under the lights. This is super fun even after dark!

Please enjoy some of Our Congress Bridge YouTube Videos (you might have to skip an ad)
The Future of Bat City
A look at a Mexican free-tailed bat Front to Back
Congress Avenue Urban Design Initiative
Check out the proposed makeover for Congress Avenue

Bat Bridge Parking Lot info:
Beware the Predatory Parking Practices of LAZ Parking

In normal times: On one hand, even a short visit of 15 minutes requires paying a 2 hr parking minimum (12 hours during SXSW / ACL), while on the other hand, if you stay even a few minutes over your 2 hours, you will receive a bill from PRRS Parking Revenue Recovery Services for $87, over and above the amount you already paid ($91 with added “convenience fee”). There has been a recent price hike of ~$5.
The Parking Notice will not state how much or for how long you paid, just time of entry and time of exit, so you will have to make note of that yourself (or save the email receipt) to be able to dispute the notice (to no avail) a few weeks later.
Parking rates at that lot vary, but spikes just before flight time and can often cost $28 – $35 for 4 hrs on a weekend evening, with the additional $91 if you stay even a few minutes over your time paid. Many times we have had to pay $122 for 4:15 hrs of parking, in order to provide our regular bridge docent services for local and visiting bat watchers.
Disputes must be made in writing within 14 days of receipt of the bill (which often arrives 2 weeks after the incident, long after you are likely to recall the details) and will be answered not by a person to which to make your case, but by a law firm demanding payment.

Bicycles, Scooters and other MicroMobility Devices: Safety Guidelines

Scooter Etiquette: Don’t drink and scoot, no doubling up on scooters, don’t text while scooting, helmet required under 18 y.o.

Bat Viewing Lawn: To report obnoxious behavior, loud music, unwanted soliciting, or aggressive panhandling, try calling the former Austin American-Statesman security at 512-445-3700. They won’t patrol the area, but may give a warning and then call APD if necessary.

Austin Bat Refuge is a local non-profit supported by donations like yours. Your support (even $1) helps us care for the Congress colony by financing rehabilitation of orphaned and injured bats, education, and conflict resolution.

Watercraft Vendors

By all means, come see the bats! There are lots of options, including Light Watercraft, and big boats Capital Cruises and Lone Star Riverboat.
Land-based viewing:
A bike lane has been created on both sides of the bridge (Thanks COA!), so it’s now much safer for bikes and bat watchers on the bridge. Please respect others’ social space and spread out along the rail.

Now that Austin has rolled back to Low Risk (OMG YAY), look for us in our usual spot on the south lawn. When you visit us, draw and write in our Bat Journal at Friday Night Flights; or if you’d like to sign it digitally, email a drawing and/or well-wishes to info@austinbatrefuge.org and we’ll add it to our online version.

Where To Stay & What To Eat

Day Trips & More

Other Bat-Watching Sites in Texas

For other Central Texas bat flight times, visit our radar page.

More on the Statesman Re-development at bottom of page

The TIRZ (Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone) that was to fund much of the infrastructure in the South Central Waterfront district has been shot down by the courts (See Austin American-Statesman article about what is happening on their former location at bottom of page).  This tool, normally used to re-develop blighted areas, was touted as a way to pay for amenities in the upscale SCW, but now that vision has gotten a wake-up call from the courts and is once more up for negotiation between developers and the taxpayers.

The Trinity Bridge: Project Connect has settled on the Trinity Bridge option, but we leave our opinion below:
We do not know all the implications of the separate design options for Project Connect and the potential light rail bridge crossing Town Lake. But strictly speaking from the bat’s perspective: We are not in favor of a proposed Trinity St bridge (pictured below in the path of the bat flight)
We feel it could inhibit the Congress Avenue Bridge bats from exiting the city, endangering what might be a $20 million / year economic engine for the City of Austin. Do we want to lose them by walling them in with high-rises of the South Central Waterfront to the south, the existing high-rises to the north, and the ever growing Rainey St wall, while adding the proposed Trinity St bridge to the east, directly in their flight path?
We would prefer the First St bridge options (the black line to the west of Congress Avenue Bridge) for any light rail river crossing, so as not to squeeze the bats even further. Considering all the river development in a holistic manner is imperative. The Congress Avenue Urban Design Initiative (CAUDI), the Statesman PUD, proposed Trinity St bridge, & Rainey St, may be happening concurrently, and the existing Line – 4 Seasons high rises will complete the box. Do we know the combined effect?

The wall of high-rises at Rainey Street is almost impenetrable for bats as it is.
Has environmental revue considered the bats in their review process?
The city did not require environmental impact surveys for wildlife in the Statesman re-development permit process, so it seems likely they won’t for any light-rail projects.
Will the height of the proposed Trinity St. bridge inhibit the bats from using the river as an exit corridor from the city?
Has environmental revue considered the height of the bat flight as they pass that point of the river?
The proposed Trinity St bridge could be the last-straw impediment for the Congress bats using the river as an exit corridor, in an increasingly urban canyon.
Is their a design plan to mitigate bat strikes on the Trinity crossing option?
Another implication of the re-development part of this is that the boathouse at Waller Creek will have to be moved, with the likely new location creating more development on the south shore in front of the Oracle campus.
For all these reasons, we urge you to support the First St Bridge options for Project Connect.
Voice your opinion before 05May2023 at https://publicinput.com/lightrailopenhouse
We would love to see the airport connected by light rail, but why is there no First St. bridge option connecting to ABIA?
In other news, The Statesman newspaper is now gone
Start date for demolition and construction on the site could be as early as Oct 2023

Latest Covid-19 Protocols are found at: http://austintexas.gov/page/covid-19-risk-based-guidelines

We’re now back down to Low Risk (Yay!) in our 5 county area, but even so, we should remain vigilant, especially with the number of people coming to visit from out of town. If you just can’t wear a mask, please continue to maintain some social distancing and be respectful of others’ health. Let’s be smart about it!

Bat viewing etiquette

No bright white lights or red lights before and during flight time.
No loud music from boats or lawn, before but especially when the bats emerge.
No rythmic clapping; it will simply stall the flight.
No soliciting; leave the humans alone too! They are a captive audience and don’t want you panhandling or imposing your ideas of music or religion upon them.

A word on drones

A permit is required (Aerial Wildlife Management) and permission from the landowner to photograph wildlife from aircraft, which includes drones.  Filming close to bats could constitute harassment, and killing of bats by a drone would be considered reckless take. These are misdemeanors, and serious violations of the Aerial Wildlife Management permits.

After the bat strike event (in Sept 2020) that killed and injured numerous bats at Congress Avenue Bridge, we asked Texas Parks and Wildlife and the City of Austin to limit amateur drone usage at the bridge and ensure that drones keep a safe distance from the bats.  Here in May 2021 is the result.  Thanks y’all!

Keep drones at a distance; don’t get down in the stream of bats! (See City of Austin drone regulations.)

Here’s a snapshot from those regulations:

Please report drone violations and other harassment of bats to Austin Bat Refuge. We will report to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. 

Congress Avenue Bridge is by no means the only bat roost in Central Texas.
Learn more on our Radar page.

Statesman Re-development

Development of the South Central Waterfront

First of all, we deplore what feels like the privatization of the once public space down at the former Austin American Statesman site. While technically the strip of unbuildable land along the water will be public, it will be dominated by billions of dollars of commercial and residential development looming over the space.
We feel that the site of “Austin’s newspaper” has always been a public space by means of prescriptive easement, through four decades of bat watching by the bat lovers of the world, who gathered nightly to view this wonder of nature.
What was once a celebration of untamed nature in the heart of this city threatens to become merely a wildlife show for the benefit of elite spectators looming over the bridge.
This space should have been a People’s Park, Zilker Park East, a gift to the city from the once beloved newspaper, which instead sold out and cashed in, after already benefitting from decades of loyal subscribers’ good will.
When it became obvious that development was inevitable, we assumed that the permitting process would require a science-based Environmental Impact Survey for Wildlife, but that turned out not to be the case. Therefore we have no scientific justification to require modifications of the development. The only way for us to be able to advocate for the bats is to work with the developers, as they play competing interests off against each other.
Now advocates for affordable housing, public access, etc. are vying for influence through modifications of zoning regulations, land grants, and public subsidies. The master plan always envisioned this horse-trading, and vehemently resisted any efforts at capping the height of the buildings adjacent to the bridge.
While we hope to advocate and influence the construction in whatever small ways we can, major suggestions that might have benefited the bats, but impeded developer’s’ ambitions, were always non-starters.

See the latest at the bottom of this page

Our world famous attraction is soon to be subject to intense development pressure of the South Central Waterfront.
The Statesman newspaper has been gone since Oct 2021.
It will be fenced off for demolition, excavation, and construction, once the City Council approves the new zoning and TIRZ.

Illustrative Buildout Rendering of the City’s SCW Master Plan of 2016 is the multi-colored area in the rendering below. The latest renderings submitted to the Planning Commission are at the bottom of this page.

This Master Plan includes some nice ideas for viewing the bats, but the development itself could have a negative effect on the colony. How can we help mitigate the effects of all this additional development? 

Perhaps the SCW development will not harm the Congress Avenue Bridge $12 million dollar per year bat-watching industry.  But with the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on the Stateman re-development alone, shouldn’t some money be spent to ensure that bat displacement and mortality is kept to a minimum? 

An Environmental Impact Survey for wildlife such as this one (CaltransNoiseEffectsonBats_7-6-16 Final) should have been  (and apparently was not) performed by experienced professionals that considers, at a minimum, the points enumerated below.  

Here’s the latest on the TIRZ – The Tax Increment Refinance Zone

Bat-human conflict will inevitably increase with intense development so close to Congress Avenue Bridge. Below are what we believe are reasonable and necessary steps to preserve this iconic bat colony that helps give Austin its sense of place.

1. Control lighting around the bridge. Increased lighting levels at the bridge could adversely affect the colony by interruption of circadian rhythms.  Dark Sky initiatives in the area around the bridge and avoiding light trespass on the roosts would ensure that the bats know the proper time to emerge to hunt.  The building closest to the bridge was originally envisioned to be an office tower.  It seems to have been changed to residential use, with accompanying light at night and viewing balconies (with potted plants in which bats frequently hide). Office buildings would be lighted less at night, and could have reduced lighting by using lighting controls such as timers or electronically tintable glass in order to prevent increases in ambient light at night so close to the bridge.
2. Control lighting along the south shoreline which serves as the bat’s commuting corridor. The bats seem to use the riparian zone along the south edge of the river as a commuting corridor as they leave to forage.  Their hugging of the trees could partly be due to the bend in the river just past the Statesman property, but it could also be that there is some other benefit to hugging that tree line.  These trees have grown taller over the 34 years the bats have been roosting at the bridge and many people remember the views were better when the trees were smaller and wish they could be removed or selectively pruned to enhance the view of the bats.  However, with the increased development, the trees may become more important to block the lights from the buildings and preserve a dark commuting corridor used by the bats to exit the city, so as not to become disoriented by the city lights. Again Dark Sky initiatives as pertains to light fixtures used to illuminate the new parkland could be critical.
3. Park maintenance that is sensitive to the bats’ flight path. Flexibility is needed to trim tall shrubby vegetation close to the bridge that could impede emergences, and to allow input on selective tree clearing during development.
4. Require bat-compatible building standards in the SCW to minimize bat-human conflict. Firms choosing to develop in the flight path of 1.5 million bats should be required to develop plans that do not allow entry of bats into the voids between the exterior envelope and the interior living or working space of the buildings.  This increases the possibility of human-bat conflict and often leads to expensive bat exclusions.  Such exclusions thus become a Life-Cycle Cost of the building which is being handed down to the future owners and operators of the buildings and lead to headlines of “bat infestations,” when in reality it is a combination of lack of proper planning details and poor execution by the builders.  Developers should be required to pay for these Life-Cycle Costs up front by paying for drawing bat-proof building details and paying the contractors enough to properly carry out the design intent. This has not been the case in many of the latest high-rise buildings along the flight path of the bats and needs to be required in the SCW district.
5. We are not in favor of the creation of tall buildings right next to the bridge. The proposed residential towers have been placed as close as they could possibly be to the bridge and will loom over it, with unknown effects on the bats. The intrusion into the psychic space of visitors to the bridge could degrade the bat viewing experience.
6. The increased levels of activity and noise during demolition, excavation, and construction will increase stressors around the bridge. Will the bats leave if it becomes too much? Would they return?
7. Model buildings near the bridge to consider their effect on the micro-climate of this bat maternity colony. Tall buildings near the bridge could partially shade the bridge during the winter and into the spring return. And the thermal mass created by all these new buildings could warm the area around the bridge, reducing the cooling airflow from the river and causing the bats to move out of the crevices onto the support structure.
8. These tall buildings may create wind tunnels, amplifying the prevailing SE breeze, which could affect the bats at flight time.
9. Underground parking garages have the potential to become the Congress Avenue Bat Cave. Don’t blame bats if they move into what could appear to be just another Central Texas sinkhole. They dive from high altitudes to return to the bridge and could just as easily dive into the garage opening. We suggest air curtains to discourage them from doing so, but that may not be enough.
10. Make Austin Bat Refuge a stakeholder in any development application and approval process. Developers reached out to us in September 2020 for the first time, and again in Feb 2021 (both times just hours before meeting with the Planning Commission), quite late in the game to shape a strategy to mitigate the effects of the 305 S. Congress project on Austin’s iconic bat bridge.
11. Incorporate an Austin Bat Refuge Education Center in the park. The original Bat Conservation Center was established in 1993 by Merlin Tuttle/BCI, then-governor Ann Richards, and the Austin American-Statesman to shed light on the bats’ contribution to a healthy environment in the city of Austin.  The need still exists, all these years later, for a dedicated education area in which to deploy tables for education materials as visitors arrive for the emergence.  A video screen with thermal or night vision capabilities for bats emerging after dark would greatly enhance visitors’ experience during summer months of late emergences.
12. Extend the downtown panhandling ban to the SCW District. Any large, regular crowd of people attracts attention from opportunists who harass a captive audience into giving them donations.  Extending the panhandling ban would help eliminate the pervasive fear-based soliciting from the bridge area.
13. Limit facility lease agreements in the immediate vicinity of the bridge to quiet daytime events. Leasing of the Statesman lot for events with multiple loud bands appears to have a negative effect on the bats, as emergences are down for many days after such events.  Many events use the viewing area for portable toilets, and rains during events have turned the viewing area into a mudhole.
14. Limit the increasing violence of Fourth of July fireworks at Auditorium Shores – No Howitzers! Every year the fireworks display at Auditorium Shores get bigger and louder. Nowadays, firework events include military-style Howitzers with exploding shells that cause bat emergences to be much reduced for some days after such events.

Ammended Zoning Approved Unanimously by Planning Commission

Statesman PUD wins unanimous support from Planning Commission – Austin MonitorAustin Monitor

Council moves toward creating South Central Waterfront TIRZ – Austin MonitorAustin Monitor

2021.12.14_305Congress_PlanCommission.pdf (dropbox.com)

Feb 08, 2022 Planning Commission – Austin, TX (swagit.com)