Hello there, make yourself at home. Well maybe not that much at home ……
Diva is a beautiful Seminole bat who came to us for flight training. She did not fly well at first, landing low on the flight cage walls, where we found her each morning for the first week and a half. Now each morning we find her sleeping high up at the peak of the aviary, meaning she’s flying stronger and can swoop up higher before securing her grip. We can watch her do many flip turns at the top of the cage before finally landing for the day. Good work Diva!
He’s a tri-colored juvenile who was learning to fly when he somehow ended up inside the atrium at 600 Congress Avenue in Austin. So the Congress bats aren’t the only bats living in the heart of downtown! We have gotten tri-coloreds n from this area previously, so we suspect they are well at home in the high-rised parking garages and breezeways that shelter them from predators.
Box employees have a workout room that is open to the atrium, and this juvie spent the day on their jungle gym before Jo and Ian contained him and brought him to us for safer fledging. Nice work you two!
This little eastern red bat boy needs a name! 18-147 just doesn’t have much of a ring to it!
Rescued by Hannah, as grackles surround him on her breezeway floor in San Marcos, she brought him to our info table at the Congress Avenue Bridge last Friday. He wowed those who witnessed the intake process, and all of us marveled at the beauty of this little pup!
Here he gets another meal of his milk-replacement formula as he gets a supervised introduction to the outdoor reds.
And now a mealworm to top off the tank as the flight cage reds in the background anticipate their breakfast.
And finally he takes his place in the flight cage stair-step heiarchy! (That’s him at the upper right)
He’s so little we’ll have to watch him real closely as he introduces himself to all the others
We want people to know that when bats swoop down low inside a building, they are not attacking, they are simply desperately thirsty!
This little red bat was trapped in a FedEx warehouse and was panicked and exhausted from dodging forklifts and floor polishers. She was desperately thirsty and repeatedly skimmed what, in the natural world, would have to be water.
Bats’ echlocation calls bounce away off flat shiny surfaces, instead of back at them, so millions of years of evolution tell them the only thing that has that characteristic (in nature) is water.
Her exertions only gave her a tounge full of floor wax instead of water and after a long while she collapsed on the floor, completely spent.
Steve and co-workers came to the rescue and contained her and brought her to the refuge. Thanks so much y’all!
She had had it with humans by the time she came to us and was as feisty as can be, and that’s saying a lot for a red bat!
We fed and watered her as much as she would let us, and soon it was obvious that she was really wanted to go.
So at midnight, after one last long drink of water and a few more mealworms, we sent her back to the wild from the release platform.
We were contacted a few weeks ago by a German ecological consultant on sabbatical, who has been traveling the world for the last year or so. Starting six months ago she was in Patagonia, then in the Brazilian Pantanal, far upstream in the Amazon, and in Montreal, before volunteering with us for three weeks. An intrepid traveler, she has been camping in the jungles and couch-surfing the cities of the world before arriving at facility with an open mind and an open heart, sharing wonderful stories from her travels.
What a joy it was to get to know her! She is a true citizen of the world, and she filled us with hope for the future! As a global ambassador, her ability to share the wonder of the natural world did her country proud! Fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, French, and who knows how many other languages, her light shines brightly and we are so happy she came to stay with us for this short while!
Lisa Soehn, you are a spectacular human being! May that twinkle in your eye continue to spread to all you meet!
Love always from Texas!
We’re not usually ones to toot our own horns, but these notes in our Bat Journal on our Information Table at Congress Avenue Bridge meant a lot to us.
Laura is great friends with Adria Lopez Baucells, whom we greatly admire, and Jordi knows Carles Flaquer, who visited our facility a few years back and is a wonderful person and dear friend.
Congress bats climbed to altitude directly over the bridge Saturday night, then turned & headed way South, with the wind. Great visit with Laura & Jordi from Barcelona! These lovely and gracious scientists are friends of our favorite bat people Adrià López Baucells & Carles Flaquer from Museu de Ciències Naturals de Granollers. This group is doing great work and we just love them. Look them up, follow them, and be awed!
This red bat is using her thumbs to stabilize her snooze on this windy day. She has her butt blanket pulled right up over her eyes and it looks like she’s closing her ear with her foot! She was found emaciated on the UT campus but is eating well and will be good to go in a few days. #batifyatx #batifyaustin #austinbats #atxbats #easternredbat #aesomebats
