Bats Leaving Austin Bridge
Though we see bat imagery all over Austin, several Austinites have yet to experience among the most incredible views that occurs along one of our busiest roads each year from March to November.
Underneath the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge lives the biggest metropolitan bat colony in The United States and Canada. When they arise in the evening throughout "bat period," it's like a cloud flying towards the eastern.
There are several areas where you can see the team of bats. The Austin-American Statesman park on the southeast side of the South Congress Bridge is totally free and open up to the public. There is also standing area along the walkway of the bridge itself. Another means to see the bats as well as the city is to take a boat flight on Woman Bird Lake.
The support framework of the South Congress Bridge, such as the buttresses, pylons, arches and articles, are original to the 1910 construction. When the roadway was rebuilt in 1980, designers included small voids running along the length of the bridge's base.
Totally by accident, this brought in the bats that already inhabited the drains pipes underneath the north side of the bridge. They reprise their houses in the cracks, where they have the ability to stack on top of each various other. Their populace increased and also reached optimum capability in just 3 years.
Now the north end of the bridge is considered the "baby room," because this is where the mommies stash their infants. After they go on their nighttime hunt for food, they go back to the north end of the bridge as well as look for their puppies by sound and also fragrance, Austin Bat Watching Tours which can take 2-20 mins. Once they nurse their children, the moms take shelter a little bit further along the bridge.
The cloud of bats every person intends to catch sight of is the "very first shift" of bats leaving the spaces of the bridge to quest for flying bugs such as insects as well as moths. This initial wave flies out right prior to sunset, as well as it can take 2-3 hours for every one of the bats to come out.
Throughout the gestational period in April-- May, the mommy bats are extremely starving so there are a lot of excellent nights to capture the 750,000 bats exiting. They all deliver in the exact same 2-week home window in early June, which creates them to leave later in the evening as well as decreases our possibility to see them. In late July/early August the nursing duration is ending and also the infants begin flying on their own. This is taken into consideration "peak period," since the whole population of 1.5 million flies bent on hunt.
The bats do remain to fly out every single evening, but some evenings they are very tough to see. By the first week of November, the bats have actually begun to move, it is starting to get cool as well as there is reduced exposure.
Every early morning, the bats return to the bridge concerning 30 minutes prior to sunrise. They are out for around 7-8 hours. They quest by themselves, and also it is not as huge of a phenomenon when they come back considering that they do not return in waves.