I was very excited. I had heard about the Austin bat emergence. Now I was going to see it in person. What to expect?
Hundreds of people were milling on the southern edge of the Congress Avenue Bridge near gorgeous Lady Bird Lake. Most talked in very hushed tones. “Would they emerge tonight?” It was long past prime season for bat emergence. Soon they would be making their yearly trek down to central Mexico, not to return till spring.
A well-informed Indian programmer gentleman gave me the heads up. It was supposed to occur between 5:30 and 6:00 PM, when 800,000 Brazilian free-tailed bats, mostly female, would emerge. Then again, it was very possible it would not occur at all. It was ticking close to 6:00. I could hear the very subtle high-pitched sounds of the bats beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge. It was as if they were nervously preparing for their big stage entrance. Then, suddenly, the bats took flight. It was magical, but quiet. They barely made a noise.
Austin is home to the largest urban bat colony in the world. “In the 1980s,” according to Lindsey Liles writing in Garden & Gun, “the Congress Avenue Bridge underwent a renovation, and the finished product featured deep, narrow crevices between the beams. Those crevices turned out to be perfect bat habitat—they protected the bats from predators and served as a warm, incubator-like setting in which females could raise their pups.” The reason is that the sun heats the pavement atop the bridge and then filters down into the gaps, warming the pups.
The unique bat habitat beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge was on the verge of destruction until the group Bat Conservation International, particularly Merlin Tuttle, became involved, helping educate the public and political representatives about the animals’ benefits. In particular, these bats are excellent at pest control, devouring between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of insects, including mosquitoes and agricultural pests, as they travel up to 90 miles each night and at speeds of 100 miles per hour in search of food.
It’s truly a miracle that the bat emergence occurs at all. Its location, mere blocks from the towering skyscrapers and other robust development of Austin, would not typically bode well for this highly sensitive species. Throw in the threats to habitat and from global warming, and the prospects are not great. But the bats hang on, literally and figuratively, a beautiful relic of when Austin was truly weird.
