Bats

Bats are big in the Hill Country of Texas!! They can be seen from the the deck of the lake house where they appear every evening at sunset to flit about above our heads.  As soon as she got here, Suzy installed a bat  house on the cabin and it is already inhabited.

According to Wikipedia and other sources, the largest summer colony of bats in the world lives in the Bracken Cave which is outside San Antonio, about 27 miles from our house. It is in a preserve.  The bats are Mexican free-tailed bats.

There is also a famous bat colony in Austin. Suzy, Darlyne and I went there last time I visited the house. They live under the Congress Avenue Bridge.  There’s a place you can go and picnic and wait for the emergence.

Here’s a little video (51 seconds) I took of the bats coming out. They come out in slightly different directions each night, and this night they came out less directly above the picnic area than they sometimes do.

Bats eat a lot of insects, but it’s not true that they actually affect the mosquito level, according to Suzy who heard a Freakonomics podcast about it.