The Bat Bridge

About a week ago, I joined a small group of seminary friends to check out the much-heralded Congress Avenue Bridge bat flight. I was very excited to see my second bat flight in as many weeks. Earlier, during the long drive to Austin, my family decided to take a slight detour off of Interstate 10 to see Carlsbad Caverns and their daily bat flight. Impressive. The Congress Avenue display, however, was astonishing. Just after 8:00 p.m., the bridge expansion cracks disgorged about 1.5 million Mexican Freetails. Five to six thick streams of bats (and cubs) swarmed out in pursuit of their daily insectoid meals.

Bryce Originally uploaded by whatnext.

Of course, I wasn't able to capture any of this with my digital camera because I had exhausted the already-low battery taking pictures of several cute kids who where there for the flight.

Bryce was one of those kids. With his cherubic face, he's Hollywood material at age one.