Those who pay attention to evening skies know that bats aren't that much of a novelty in these parts; they're often seen flying out of mall parking garages and flapping around South Texas skies at sunset. But a large colony of Mexican free tail bats have decided to roost beneath an I-35 overpass just east of the San Antonio Museum of Art, and watching them go out for eats at dusk has become the thing to do.
Last Tuesday evening seemed like a nice time to check out the little guys, after stopping at The Red Balloon to pick up a copy of “The Little Lost Bat” for effect. August is supposed to be the ideal time to watch Mexican free tail bats go out for the evening because most of their babies are born in June and are just now old enough to fly out with their moms, although a bat expert quoted in one of the Express-News' earlier reports of the bat colony said this bunch was probably a bachelor colony, which roosts separately from the mamas and the babies.
Parking was wide open — and, more importantly, free — at the Pearl Brewery.
By 7, a family stocked with drinks and chips had already arrived to watch the emergence and were sitting on the edge of the river. They had been there on another evening but arrived too late and only saw a couple of bats who hit the snooze button one too many times. Drought conditions make for earlier bat departures.
“That's why we're here now,” one of the bat viewers said. “I'm not going to miss it this time.”
The friendly driver of a scantly populated river barge floating by shouted out a little help.
“You'll see them flying out between 8 and 8:15. See those orange cones over there? That's the ideal spot to see them. Just sit over there and you can't miss them.”
General admission is free on Tuesdays after 4 p.m. at the San Antonio Museum of Art, which provided an unexpected pre-bat show only a few steps away from the bridge. Just before 8, another couple of families showed up; more tourists strolled by. The orange fish came to life with neon, as did the lights around the walkways. That's when the bats showed up, at first one at a time.
A few minutes later they came out in bigger groups, forming a stream of bats into the sky which swirled higher and higher for about 20 minutes. That's around the time the kids watching the bats started focusing on a portable video game.
Austin, which is host to a huge nursery colony of bats (that's the mama and baby bats) under the Congress Avenue bridge, has embraced its bats as a tourist attraction. There are benches and a bat statue mark the prime viewing area; there's even a BatFest 2009 planned for this Saturday, with music, food and merchant booths.
Hmmm. Could S.A. follow that flight pattern?