Batty In Austin (nature shots part 2)

I wandered around downtown Austin. Austin's supposed to be a hip/happening place. Surely there must be something I could shoot down there. Butterflies were just not going to cut it.

Well... I was right.

I remembered that during the summers, the Congress bridge holds is home to thousands of bats that surge out into the night around sunset. Makes for quite a view. These bats make for an delightful olifactory (overwhelming smell of guano in the area) and visual (thousands of little rodents flying in the air) experience.

So I parked the car around the 1st street bridge. This was a short walk from the congress bridge.



A small crowd was already starting to develop at the spot.



I had some time, so I figured I would explore DT in the day. Don't come here much when its daylight, so you miss out on some of the sights, like this one here

Yes, I know. Just a waterfall. But just standing there in its spray and finding my own thoughts drowning in the roar of the water was somehow soothing to me. It quiets the mind to a point where all the voices in head couldn't say anything above the din of the water. It's not very often I can get those guys to shutup.

I figured if I'm going to get a good shot at those rodents, I better find my place in that crowd that was really starting to swell.

I mean, look at these poeple! Why are these facinated by these icky flying rodents? And I'm right there with them.



As I waited, I struck up a conversation with a chinese gentleman and his mother who were trying to read what exactly was written on this guy's shirt


The gentleman explained that it talked about the rain and thunderclouds convolving with .... something and doing something with the tide and stuff...

I bet if you wrote humpty dumpty in chinese and sold that shirt, folks would buy it. It's one of those fads, like having a che guavara t-shirt. You have no idea what the symbols/man mean/stood for but damn, it looks cool on a shirt. I know I would buy it :)

Ok...the bats. Lets see them then






And there you have it folks.

These bats will rid the city of all kinds of nasty bugs in the night and will settle under the bridge for the day, only to rise again the next time.

Makes you wonder how thousands of bats a) found this bridge and b) all agreed to make it their summer home.

The real-estate guy must have made a killing...

[Update] Here are the pics in my tabblo. Arn't they purty?

See my Tabblo