July 6, 2011

For five years, I shared this city with 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats, but had yet to meet these neighbors until this evening.  When you live in such a fantastic city, it is all too easy to take its unique aspects for granted or altogether fail to take advantage of them, which I suppose is my excuse for never meandering onto the South Congress Bridge around sundown to catch these nighttime creatures fly off in groups of hundreds of thousands.  Interestingly, I'm sure I've seen them flying across the beautiful evening sky on occasion, only to ask myself, "what is that strange moving, grey mass?"  There seems to be little reason to the timing of the beginning of flight and, in fact, not all of the bats leave at the same time.  On some evenings, you may be right on time to see all 1.5 million bats, while on other evenings, you may only catch the last few flying east.  The experience may be a matter of the luck of the draw, but the risk is worth the experience!