I've got a little system going once I get to a new city. First, if they have a visitors center that should be the first stop. The people in there love talking to you and they flood you with all sorts of useful information. You get easy to read maps of the area, plus they are great in advising places to go out, stay, eat, etc.. The very first thing I did after securing a place to stay was...yup...take the city tour. As you can see this was a land/water tour. I think this guy was having a little too much fun driving his amphibious vehicle. Our plunge into Lake Austin was without breaks.    The famous yellow-tailed bats of Austin. Long ago when maleria was spreading from mosquitoes a man in Austin started breeding and raising bats. He built structures that bats liked to live in. The number of maleria cases dropped in the area, however, there is no documentation that suggests it was specifically because of the bats.
The bats now reside under the Congress St. bridge. Like clock work they come out every night around dusk from May to November (they then migrate to Mexico). The bridge is home to approximately 1.5 million bats. Hopefully you can see the ribbon in the sky of bats. They fly east towards open farm land to feed. It is estimated that they eat between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of insects every night.
You may also know that bat guano is actually a harvested product they has many different uses from medicinal to power generation.
This is a must see. You could actually hear them flapping and squeaking. It really was amazing.  You can see this is a poplular event. This is just a shot of the people standing near me. There were about 500 more people standing on the bridge itself. Everyone was amazed. While Austin isn't the largest city in TX it is the state capital and the sixth most wealthy city in the country. Here is a shot of the capitol building which just happens to be 7 feet higher than the country's capitol.
Hey Texas does everything big. It is hard to notice here. However, Texas is the only state allowed to fly their flag at the same height as the country's flag if on different poles (on the same pole the U.S. flag is on top). The reason is because at one time Texas was it's own country (the Republic of Texas). Actually Texas was part of six countries in its history. France, Spain, Mexico, Republic of Texas, the Confederacy, and the United States. |
