Bats are Back 16Mar2016 UTC HD (Click on link to see video)
The bats are back at Congress Ave Bridge in Austin!
This video from last night shows 3 or 4 separate flights from the bridge before a north front sweeps in, taking most of the bats along for the ride.
The last few years the bats have made sure to be back for the South by Southwest Music Festival.
The viewing is great these days, they’re coming out well before dark.
Here’s a compilation of our local rehabilitation intakes. Lots of overlap downtown obscures pins. So many people went out of their way to help these bats! Thank you all so much.
Key is 1-Mexican free-tailed, 2- Eastern red bat, 3- Northern yellow, 4- Evening bat, 5- Tri-colored bat, 6- Cave myotis, 7- Southern yellow bat, 8- Seminole bat
We have photographic evidence that our wonderful Myotis velifer, Mothra, can catch her own food on the wing. She’s sure come a long way since we got here as a neo-nate last summer. Love this bat!
Our over-winter evening bat guests have been shredding the flight cage the last few nights. First clear night we’ll wait till the flyers are hunting in the flight cage, then we’ll take the non-volants out of the bat box and put them in a pup tent. The next morning we’ll have only flyers in the box and we can gather them for release. These are very cool little bats!
Wild Austin yellow (click on link to left for video)
This northern yellow bat (Lasiurus intermedius) was blown out of an Austin palm tree in yesterday morning’s cold gusty winds. In the video, we see her using her feet to help control her “prey”, in this case, hand-fed mealworms. Although it’s hard to hear in the video, the yellow bats in our care have been the noisiest chewers imaginable. We can hear them down the hall in another room as they demolish their dinner!
