I'm having a friend from North Carolina coming to visit me here in Austin TX..It’s her first time in this area. Planning to fit in training while taking her to some of Austin’s landmarks. We plan to go down 6th street, check out UT, the capital and of course the Congress Avenue bats.
The Congress Avenue bridge in downtown Austin is the spring and summer home to some 750,000 bats with up to 1.5 million bats at the peak of the bat-watching season. It's the largest urban bat colony in North America.
While bats have called Austin home for many years, it was after renovations to the Congress Avenue bridge over Town Lake in 1980 that they found their favorite hang out. Narrow but deep openings created in the bridge turned out to be perfect accommodations.
Each evening around sunset the Congress Avenue bats emerge like a black cloud from the crevices of the bridge. Covering the countryside in search of food. It is estimated that the bats consume from 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects.
Giving birth in June or July, the bats and pups hang around til October when they head back south. Watching the nightly forays for food is a favorite evening activity, especially in late summer.
IT’s like watching something out of a scary movie !!!
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