Ballet Of Bats

While Austin has many charms to offer the best, in my humble opinion, are the bats. I refer to the colony of Mexican Free-tailed bats that call the Congress Avenue bridge their summer home. It seems to often we hear of humans destroying or making life difficult for our wild counterparts on this planet. It's nice to see something unintentionally beneficial.

Bats are so very cool (anything that eats mosquitoes is quite ok in my book). People are so very stupid. The questions and comments of my fellow bat watchers bordered on entertaining to downright stupid. My favorites were the woman who declared excitedly "look it's a bat!" Hmm, feathers, a beak. Nope that was a bird. Or her equally clueless boyfriend who inquired if the bats ate fruit. Sure thing and they're called fruit bats. Of which the bats in Austin are not.

And of course, this couple, who were perfectly matched in their ignorance, wondered if they were vampire bats. One could only hope they would for moment turn vampire and these two delightful people would be their first and only victims.

When the bats finally made their appearance they were spectacular!