Going batty

In true Austin Texas tradition we took our out of towners to see the bats at congress bridge.

Much to our delighted surprise we also found our friends! YAY!

Ian's friend was baptised that day and so his family took their out-of-towner grandparents to see the bats to.

Becky was having so many back problems that she spend the majority of the time sitting on the lawn.

Poor grandma.

The kids had fun playing around by the river.

Me, I spend the whole time hoping they would not fall in.

The boys were quickly heavily engaged in a serious discussion as to how to catch a bat.

The kids finally got away from the water and as it got darker the lawn got fuller. -of people.

Congress bridge. People stand and watch from the top as well.

The Bats live in the crevices under the bridge. There is about 1.5 million of them!

The perfect thing about this family is that they have a friend for Ian, a friend for Ivy and even a little sister the twins age!

It was starting to get dark and even though my eyes were adjusting just fine apparently my camera was not. I love Ivy's arm on this picture. 

And now I'm proud to present you with my fantastic documentation of all the dirt on my lense that I just can not get off!

And...........

A bat!

Whut! You don't see it? It is that dark blob in between all the light blobs.

I had to use my highly scientific photo editing skills....and paint. there really was not a red arrow in the sky! I know, surprising.

This is the original picture.

Needless to say I did not take any more.

If you want to go see them your self here is some trivia, including a bat hot line, that I copied from this web page

" When and Where To See the Congress Avenue Bats:

Although the Congress Avenue bats are in residence as early as March, the best bat views are in August when the young pups join their mothers in the nightly flights. It can take as long as 45 minutes for all the bats to exit the bridge. There are plenty of locations along Lady Bird Lake in the vicinity of Congress Avenue where you can watch the bats. Flights normally occur around 8 to 8:30 pm but could be earlier or later. Best bet, call the Bat Hot line at 416-5700 ext. 3636 for times. "

 

I'm going to have to call that and see if we can still see them by Halloween.

Astrid kept calling the bats her honeys and asured us that they were all hers. All 1.5 million give or take a few. Once they started flying out she kept calling them. "honey! honey! I'm over here!"

Here is a great video from a boat on the lake.

 view from the bridge, very cool.

And finally this video is from one of the tour boats. It really shows how they snake across the sky, and it has a great commentary full of facts, like bats always turning left when coming out, from the tour guide.