No trip to Austin, Texas would be complete with a visit to the Congress Avenue Bridge, home of the largest urban bat colony. Here, the female Mexican Free-tail bats roost and throughout the summer and most of October you can see their nightly flight or take a boat ride under the bridge. The male bats roost elsewhere.
The best sightings (750,000-1.5 million bats) are in the summer when you have the most visibility, but we were still able to see some under the street lights at about 7:55pm. Is it too much to wish for a visit to Austin NEXT July so we can get see a picture like the one below (on Bat Conservation International website)?
For more information on bat flights you can call the bat hotline (512-416-5700, ext 3636) or visit the Bat Conservation International website where you can also purchase bat curriculum guides.
If we could do it again we would also take the boat tour for a different perspective.
Hi
I see it is suppose to rain in Austin at the end of the week. If you are looking for kid activities check-out http://www.parentwiseaustin.com/. It has a calendar for every kid related activity in the metro area. Also if you get a chance the Wholefoods Corp Headquarters is downtown with it’s Flagship store. They normally have live music in the evenings and casual dining with foods from Texas, Japan and other parts of the world. And all the museums use to be free for kids on Thursday. If it is sunny the DinoLand and Zilker Botanical Gardens are having a Dino Exhibit until Nov.30
Enjoy
Thanks for the info! I’m glad you are the Austin guinea pig for fieldtrips. 🙂 Hmmm… I’d love to see the bats but it sounds like we should wait until summer.