When Maggie and Kevin were here last month, I finally got to see one of the Austin tourist attractions that had eluded me (read: no one would go with me, until Maggie and Kevin agreed to go). We made our way down to the Congress Avenue bridge on the edge of downtown Austin to see the nightly flight of the colony of bats that lives in the bridge. They say it's the largest urban bat colony with 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats.
We settled in to watch the sunset view on a hill beside the bridge.
But, once the bats started flying out, we could tell that the view from atop the bridge was better and headed up there.
The bats were coming out in large droves for more than 30 minutes, and it was fascinating to see how many of them live inside this bridge!
There are also boat tours to view the bats flying over the water, but I'm a little creeped out by potential bat droppings.
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4 comments:
I'm with ya on the bat droppings! I think I would have peed my pants seeing that coming towards me!
What bridge is this so I can avoid it at sunset? I have a fear of bats, but I'm positive Jacob would love to see it!
@Christine - It's the Congress Ave. bridge over Town Lake on the south side of downtown Austin. We also have a bat colony of about 1 million under an I-35 bridge here in Round Rock. Those bats come out earlier, around 6ish, but there is no where to safely watch them. At the Congress Ave. bridge, there is a parking lot, viewing area, walkway on the bridge, and some places that list info on the bats. Jacob would probably really enjoy it. I had seen a similar bat exodus from some caverns in NM, and this was just as cool as that one.
Oh Wow! I've heard about these bats but haven't been able to see them. It looks so cool! I think that the next time we are in Austin we shall make this a must see...especially if it is like the one in NM :) Looks like a great weekend!
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