Going Batty

As ridiculous as this sounds, going to see the Congress Avenue Bridge Bats is on my "bucket list". It has been since I saw a story about them a few years ago on television. Got to cross this off the list! They say that this is the second largest bat colony in North America. They're Mexican Free Tailed bats and like all bats, are totally amazing creatures. Not only that they're the only flying mammal but in what they do for us. Without them the insect population would explode and damage crops and potentially do other harm such as spread diseases like malaria or West Nile Virus. Without them, pollination would decrease dramatically. We viewed the nightly exodus from a boat tour and it was so very cool. The boys loved it and it was a totally unique experience. Several people have asked me if it smelled...after all there are 1.5 million bats under that bridge. But I didn't smell a thing. The squeeking - eeking noise from all of them was pretty loud though!

Dressed to impress my batty friends

Bat Boat

People lined up on the bridge to watch them emerge

They enter and exit from those expansion joints and there is an 18 inch space between the bottom of the bridge and the underside of the road surface where they live.