What a great illustration of a moth jamming a bat’s echolocation!
Illustration by Chris Tullar from Aaron Corcoran.
This is a great depiction of what goes on in our flight cage every night (albeit with different species)!
Bats have been echolocating for around 25 million years and moths have been evolving defenses against them for just as long.
A bat has to be at the top of its game to make a living out there.
Bats are back at Frio! First flight since before Christmas!
We’ve been seeing at Fern & Stuart starting ten days ago, but they have been hunkering down during the last cold snap.
With the first few warm nights, they’ve moved back into Frio Cave.
Welcome back beauties!
The National Fish & Wildlife Foundation asked us to “represent” as they announced grants given for “Bats For the Future” at the Shell Campus in Houston’s Energy Corridor. Nothing like seeing live bats up close and personal. Our “Bat Ambassadors” were the stars of the show!
Thanks NFWF!
This Mexican free-tailed girl was found, a few weeks back, at Penn Field by Sara Fern of iHeart Media
She was super dehydrated from being stuck in a building for many days and was super lucky Sara found her.
After two weeks of good food and smart water, she flew beautifully last night, and is ready for release!
She says “I Live Here, I Give Here”
Thanks for giving her a second chance Sara!
Save the date!
Lots of Central Texas bat activity on a chilly evening. Devil’s Sinkhole, Old Tunnel, and Huber really show up strongly because of their more isolated locations. Still a strong flight from Congress, so our newly released bats have plenty of company.
This beautiful cave myotis (Myotis velifer) was hanging motionless in the same location for four days in the corner of Cait’s balcony. She was worried about him and was kind enough to contain him and have us check him out. He turned out to be just fine! We fed and hydrated him for a few days and released him tonight. Thanks for caring Cait!
Latest research shows that 3 out of 4 Mexican free-tailed bats found in Saver’s Thrift Store prefer the Halloween department over other parts of the store. Even though bats have nothing to do with Halloween 😉 , they nonetheless provided holiday ambience as they hung decoratively up with the fake cobwebs up in the ceiling! The other was recovered from over the cash register area, so perhaps the last one was making sure they got paid for their advertising efforts!
They all were fine, just wondering why Savers keeps inviting them into the store and then freaking out about it. Humans!
Here are three of the four a few days later, ready to be released under Congress Avenue Bridge, as soon as F1 takes down the fences for their party at the bat-viewing area.
While they were resting up for their release, an immature Texas rat snake curled up under the roof tarp to stay dry and bask. He was within a few inches of one of the boys and would have had him for lunch but for the netting in between them. Watch out you valiant little bats!
Here’s the rat snake getting relocated a few miles down the creek.
Here they are finally getting released at Congress Avenue Bridge after their circuitous adventure!
Great work Di! The first two talks were to veterinarians at the Convention Center, the last one for the Rotary Club on their riverboat cruise. The boat cruise was really great! The city looked beautiful at night and the bats were translucent in the bridge lights!
A recent episode of Rick Steves Europe titled “Greece’s Peloponnese” included Epidavros, the Greek healing center where doctor-priests performed the work of Esclepios, the Greek god of medicine. This center served Greeks from ~400 BC to 426 AD.
When demonstrating the acoustics of the 12,000 seat amphitheater that entertained those who traveled there for healing, Steves gave a speech meant to sound as if delivered by an ancient Greek: “Friends, Greeks, wayfarers, in these times of discord, fear is rampant in our society. I contend that the flip-side of fear is understanding, and those who travel reap great understanding by meeting people who hold OTHER truths to be self-evident and God-given.”
We love this about Rick Steves and we wish that we could travel more to experience the truths of other cultures. We hope that one day we can do so, but in the meantime, we get to have travelers come to us as we staff the information table at the Congress Avenue Bridge Bat Viewing Area. Thanks so much to all the intrepid travelers who took the time to write in our Bat Journal!
In the future we’ll make a point of asking more about THEIR lives. Much as we love to have them log their impressions of the Austin bats, we want them to share THEIR truths and gain some insight into the way THEY see the world!
Our former neo-nate D-Day had his big night last night! He and all his classmates joined the Congress bat colony, in plenty of time to integrate prior to their migration south in a few weeks to come. So thrilling to watch them go!
D-Day was found on June 6th as a newborn pup clinging to the top of the bridge with just his feet and tail sticking up under the railing.
Dianne rescued him and hand-raised him and his free-tailed classmates from little specks, so tonight was emotional, as the end of their captive upbringing and the beginning of their new life as part of the wild Congress Avenue Bridge colony! Go with the bat gods, with the wind, with your guts, little pups!
Danielle O’Neil’s great photo of D-Day at 3 weeks:
Just to train them correctly, we waited until all the tourists left before releasing them from the top of the grassy slope of the bat viewing area ;). (It seems the Congress colony waited to emerge until the crowd of tuna boats, kayaks, LED lights, and red lights went away, before they emerged.) So our pups will learn from the best! That means, of course, that our pup also did not cooperate with the paparazzi, so no videos or photos of the release! Good bats! This photo from the flight cage earlier in the season.
People from Poland, France, and Alaska all came to see the emergence last night! We love having our information table at the bridge to help inform the tourists about the bats.