After ID'ng the bird that's constantly calling around Austin as a Great Tailed Grackle,
we have some delicious pizza at Home Slice Pizza on South Congress Ave Then we take a short drive up for a walk on the Lady Bird Lake trail in the downtown area. (The lake was created when the Longhorn Dam was created in 1960 on the Colorado River which runs thru town.)
A paved (mostly shaded) trail system surrounds the lake for walking, running, cycling, etc. And the people of Austin heavily use these trails!
The problem for us tonight is finding parking (always fun in a big city). But we do find a hidden unfilled parking lot on the far east side. (yea!)
We head off on the trail west (I think) toward the Congress Ave bridge. Lots of trees keep it cool-ish; it's sunny and in the mid-80s.
We reach a bridge and upon crossing it, see many, many large Red Slider Turtles in the water. I've never seen so many turtles in one place not to mention large ones.
We continue around (probably less than 1 mile) when we reach the bridge. Many, many folks already waiting for this evening's flight.
The bats we're waiting for are the Mexican Free-tailed bats. They start arriving in the Spring. At the peak of summer, there are around 1.5 million bats. Since it's still early Spring, I'm sure we'll be seeing much less.
I think just after 8pm (sunset was at 7:50), we start seeing a few bats against the sky on our side of the bridge. A few of the tour boats on the water are spot-lighting the bridge with red light and soon, here comes the stream of bats on the other side of the bridge. At first, they're are visible in the red light and then the sky! No a sky-blackening amount of them but a good stream (I'm impressed!)
Pretty soon, the bats are all out keeping the insect population around the lake to a minimum!
Definitely, worth the visit!
