While in Austin for an Amazing Pet Expo recently, some of my great pals from Westie Rescue Austin told me I had to see the bats! They said it is a “can’t miss” thing when you visit Austin. So being the traveling dog I am, I told mom we had to see the famous Congress Street Bats.
The Congress Avenue bats in downtown Austin are Mexican Free Tailed bats. There are between 750,000 to 1.5 million bats that call the underside of this bridge home. During the summer they live in Austin, and then in the late fall they all go to Mexico for the winter season. The bridge is where they raise their babies and teach them to hunt bugs. These bats are the largest urban bat colony in North America. Every evening, they all leave the bridge to go hunting all over the Austin area. They don’t leave the bridge a few at a time, they actually leave together in one long coordinated effort. It is quite a site to see. The time they decide to fly away varies, so the city of Austin has a bat phone (ok had to say the joke … actually it is a bat hotline) that will tell you what time to be near the bridge to see the bats leave. The number is (512) 416-5700. Luckily, we got the inside scoop from a few Austin locals who told us to go to the Austin American Statesman Newspaper and park there. From the parking lot there was a trail that took you to a viewing area below the bridge.
Here I am telling Mom and Dad to hurry up, we can’t miss the bats!
Right when we got to the viewin spot the bats took off!
Here is a still picture of some of the bats. I have to admit, Mom didn’t take this photo, we got it off of Flickr because Mom forgot her mega zoom camera lens.
Here is another video, minus the totally cute white dog watching the bats.
So if you’re ever in Austin, we highly recommend you stop by the Congress Avenue bridge and watch the bats leave to go find their dinner!
