Austin Bats

The very first time I set foot in Austin, TX it was early August, 1996. I was driving from Portland, OR to work for a year at the Texas School for the Deaf. My car broke down outside of Waco and I had slept in it the night before. I then walked to the closest small town and had a very uncomfortable encounter with a tow truck driver who took me to a mechanic shop in Waco. I had to leave my car and take the Greyhound to Austin with only as much as I could carry.

When I arrived Downtown at the bus station it was about 7:30 pm and 105 degrees. The damp heat was oppressive and I strained under the weight of my luggage. I was walking across the Congress Ave Bridge to find a Motel. I noticed a long line of people on the sidewalk looking over the side. Looking over the rail to see what they were watching I saw about 100 people sitting on the grass below starting back up at the people on the bridge. When asked, a woman on the bridge said "we're waiting for the bats." "There are bats under this bridge?" I asked. She said, "you're not from around here, are you."

I went down to lie on the grass and watch. At about 8:30, just at the sun touched the horizon to set, about one and a half million bats flew out of the grooved in the underside of the bridge and made a cloud that darkened the sky as they flew out and spread over the river to spend the night foraging insects.

Last week I was excited to hear that the bats had returned from their Mexican migration and were flying right after sunset. In the cool of the spring time, they don't fly out in one huge cloud so much as stream out in a fluttering river over about a 10 minute period. It was still something to see, and the people were still lined up on the bridge.