refuge

Great night for Central Texas bats as a strong seabreeze pushes moths toward the Hill Country while a North front brings reverse migrating moths back from the northland, making a smorgasborg for Mexican free-tailed bats fattening up for their own migration south at the end of the month. This year’s pups are packing on the grams preparing for their first big journey. Their is a lot going on in this video as the Hill Country roosts are perfectly situated to take full advantage of both fronts.

Here’s the Congress Avenue Bridge bats that same night going with the seabreeze to the NW, to feed on moths pushed along on the leading edge of the front.

Posted on October 13, 2016, updated on October 17, 2016 by The Refuge

Here’s an angle rarely seen of a Mexican free-tailed bat. If you look closely you can see the long “whisker” hairs sticking out between the toes. “Kind of like you honey” a bridge visitor said to his girlfriend this summer, right before she hit him, hard.

Posted on September 29, 2016, updated on September 30, 2016 by The Refuge

Mexican free-tailed bat

Mexican free-tailed bats are built for speed. Their long narrow wings are just one of the adaptations that rank them among the fastest bats.
They are, however, also remarkably agile in tight spaces. They use bone structure and muscle fibers to change their wing aspect ratio to short and broad, allowing high maneuverability when necessary.

Mexican free-tailed bat

Posted on September 10, 2016, updated on September 10, 2016 by The Refuge

We’ve always wondered why every morning we find whole moths floating in the water of the drinking trough, in the bat garden. These are whole moths, not just the wings we would expect to find, when bats catch the moths, shuck the wings, and eat the rest.
So why so many whole, often live, moths in the water?

bats, moths, austin bats

Here a Seminole bat controls a moth

Last night we finally got proof of what we suspected to be the reason.
We have a blacklight that attracts insects into the garden. It hangs from the center ridge of the aviary and is directly over the drinking pool. The pool is also situated in the center so that it collects the drips from the misters, which are also hung from the center ridge.
Our flight school bats fly in wide circles that are tangent to the light, so that they can catch any moth that happens to be flying at the wrong place at the wrong time. When they catch one, they curl up into a ball as they fly, to control the moth and bring it up to their mouths.
If one watches a moth circle under the light, within seconds a bat will zoom in and snatch the moth.
Last night we watched while evening bats did just that. bats, moths, austin bats

bats, moths, austin bats
But in between catches of fluttering moths, we noticed times where moths we were watching, just before a bat swooped in, would fold their wings and plummet downwards, splash-landing in the pool!
We have often heard of moths evolving defenses to counter the amazing bio-sonar the bats employ to hunt them. This arms race has been going on since bats developed echolocation around 25 million years ago, and has manifested in countless ways ever since. Some moth species have it hard-wired in their DNA that, upon hearing bat bio-sonar, their synapses fire in such a way that paralyzes their wings, causing them to plummet downward, away from the bats closing trajectory. This seems to work quite well, unless the moths just happen to be over our bat drinking trough!
So now we know why so many moths are found each morning in the pool! We just may move the light location so that these moths land in the garden instead, and rise once more to provide additional foraging opportunities for our bats as they hone their hunting skills. This will be a big benefit when we have a full house of bats in flight school, with not enough moths to go around.
We love these little insights that nightly observation provides in the aviary!

Posted on September 5, 2016, updated on September 9, 2016 by The Refuge

Kyndal Irwin (& Zonker)

Kyndal is a sophmore at the University of Texas and taking a heavy course load in their College of Biological Sciences. Genetics and Bio-Statistics will serve her well in her career in bat work.
We love having her as part of the team!

Congratulations Austin Bat Girl, on completing the summer intern program at Austin Bat Refuge!
Your dedication went above and beyond a call of duty!
You are now an ABR Certified Bat Handler!

The loving care you gave the Bat Class of 2016 ensured they got the very best start to their new, wild lives.
Or, as you would put it, in your own inimitable way:

“After months of making a determined team, the bats and Austin Bat Refuge are proud to say, that together- WE DID IT! ”
This pup says “I’m ready to be released! Thanks for the help, humans!”

Tonight, many of our bats will return to a life in the wild! Get on with your bat self! We’ll miss you guys, thanks for all the fun!”

austin bat refuge rehabilitation release rescue

Posted on September 1, 2016, updated on September 17, 2016 by The Refuge

LG, a northern yellow bat, fell from the top of a very tall palm tree when it was cut down. He was severely bruised all over his body and was in such great pain that he could barely lift his head when he was brought to Marsha Price, our amazing, wonderful friend and bat-savant at our Houston branch. Marsha at first thought he had a fracture on his right wing shaft, but after a while she determined that it was just severely bruised. She nursed him back to health slowly but surely over the next few weeks, to the point where he needed the aviary to see if he would be releasable. Now that the mum & pups are gone, we can better tell about LG’s flight skills. Here’s a photo of him cruising the aviary last night and we can see that he has a some damage to a joint in his right wing.

LG Copyright
Upon examination, it is obviously inflamed, so we’ll give him Metacam to reduce the swelling and see if he’ll let us check his range of motion in a few days.
He does fly and land quite well, he just doesn’t fly all night like the yellows we released last week. We hope he shows enough improvement to be released before winter, but if not, he’ll be well taken care of while helping with our pest control in the flight cage Winter Garden.

Posted on August 31, 2016, updated on August 31, 2016 by The Refuge

This Mexican free-tailed pup was found 17July2016 under Congress Ave Bridge. This was the first day the skypuppies took flight this year and it seems a mid-air collision grounded him on the footpath. Bat watchers correctly refrained from handling him and when they alerted us, we brought him back to our facility for care. We discovered that his forearm was curved in a manner reminiscent of the arches of the bridge, so of course he was named Archie and we expected he would likely not become volant. To our delight, he was not to be denied the joys of flight! We left his pup tent open to the flight cage and he bravely joined all of this year’s pups in the aerial circus that resembles a nightly fighter jet dogfight. He also flits around in the afternoon gliding like a butterfly before cleverly finding his way back to the pup tent for snacks!
We will closely monitor his skills to see if he is up to the fall migration, if not he’ll stay with us and enjoy hunting moths in the bat garden. Good pup Archie!
Archie 2

Posted on August 30, 2016, updated on August 30, 2016 by The Refuge

Vibrant young newcomers to the wild Austin nightlife scene, five shining stars took their rightful place in the sky last night. Dianne Odegard does the honors as the last of this year’s yellow pups wings her way off into the night, surveying her new domain and a possible palm tree roost.

austin bats rehabilitation release yellow bats lasiurus intermedius

Di & yellow bat at Poquito Creek

Yellow soaring up to the stars

home sweet home for our yellows (we hope)

Posted on August 25, 2016, updated on August 26, 2016 by The Refuge

What a great release last night! Such a joy to see them leap from the pup tent and circle above us in the twilight! We’ll miss their nightly insect hunting competition in the flight cage, but our hearts and minds go with them as they soar the night skies, ranging as high and wide as their hearts desire, flying wild and free! Indelible memories little bats, thanks so much!
Oh and your’re not quite ready to go yet sweetheart? Then you can stay with us, we’ll try again later.

rehabilitation release bats austin rescue DSC_1074 (3) rehabilitation release austin bats

Posted on August 24, 2016, updated on August 26, 2016 by The Refuge

It was a normal night in the aviary, watching the bats fly, seeing who looks ready for release and who needs more time. The eastern red pup that was low on the side wall this morning was flying beautifully so he seems to be recovered. The northern yellows were flying with astonishing speed and power and I just managed to get a shot of one of the pups (at bottom of the post).
All of a sudden, the yellows crashed back into their palm fronds, I looked up, saw a shadow, and just got this shot as a Barred Owl flew right over the flight cage with a bluejay in it’s talons!

Barred Owl with Bluejay

All the bats took cover so I looked for the owl in a nearby tree and found it staring back at me.
Barred Owl

I watched it feed on the bluejay for half an hour before it went on about its business. Just check out this series of photos!
Barred Owl feeding

Barred Owl & blue feathers 2

After the shadow of the Barred Owl crossed over the aviary the second time, not a single bat flew for the next few hours!
Here’s the photo of the Yellow taken just before the owl crossed over the cage with the jay. Is it me, or is he shouting “Incoming!”
Northern yellow pup

Found under tree next day

Posted on August 8, 2016, updated on August 9, 2016 by The Refuge

Seabreeze & North Front

Toe whiskers

Built for Speed

Moth mystery

Summer Intern Graduates – 2016

Little Guy “LG”

Archie!

Yellow bat release

Leaf bat release

Barred Owl