A couple of months ago, I headed off to San Antonio and Austin in Texas, United States and realized I haven’t made any posts on Austin! (But you can see my posts on San Antonio here, here and here) Oh, Austin. Oddly enough, prior to coming here, I was fairly oblivious to what this city had to offer, except that it resides Rooster Teeth as well as the South by Southwest film festival.
But one thing that Austin prides itself in is being an oddball. In fact, they have a local saying – Keep Austin Weird.
One thing that certain has Austin being weird is the population of over a million bats living in the city. And thanks to the tip from HeyCiara during our impromtpu dinner at The Ocho Lounge, I was able to witness these bats emerging from the darkness for their feeding time at sunset.
The bats live right underneath one of the city’s busiest bridges – the South Congress bridge. About an hour prior to sunset, people started to flock on the bridge (I, among them), trying to get the best spot and anxiously waiting for the first bat the come out of hiding.
All was quiet, aside from the rushing cars passing on the bridge.
And suddenly, as one flew out, so did a trail of thousands of bats, chirping away in strong unison.
For a good while, the bats just kept coming and coming out of the bridge. And when they all made their way out in the open Austin sky, they flew away in a stampede farther and farther from us until they were nothing more than a line of black dots in the distance.
I’ve seen many sunsets in my life, but witnessing bats in Austin has to be one of the most eventful one I’ve experienced yet.