"On the bat's back I do fly | After summer merrily." - Shakespeare

This past weekend, I had a great visit with the family.  We took a trip out to The Oasis which is always a guaranteed crowd pleaser.  The view is great and I hear it's even better at sunset.  The food is good, not great...but the experience more than makes up for that.

After the great lunch we headed back to my house for a little R&R before going to see the bats on the Congress Ave bridge.  As a resident of Austin for going on 8 years, it's amazing that I've never been to see one of Austin's most famous tourist attractions.  If you don't know, Austin is home to the world's largest urban bat colony.  1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats... just hanging out under the Congress bridge from March to October.  

I had not idea what to expect going to the bridge... but what I saw was truly amazing. The bats came out right at sundown... around 8:30pm.  I took lots of pictures, but none really do the event justice...check out the links below which have some good shots.  I had this vision of a huge mass of bats flying out at once and sort of swarming then dispersing.  It looked more like a constant trail of smoke flying out from under the bridge.  The bats spiraled through the air and stayed in this amazing sort of formation until they were no longer visible in the distance.  

I'm so glad my family came in town and got to participate in this very Austin activity with me.  

If you want to read more about the Austin bats you can at these sites:

Bat Conservation International

Austin 360

Lonestar Riverboat