It’s that time of the year again—time for lots and lots of insects. It’s also time to celebrate a San Antonio critter that loves to dine on them--bats. And at a certain place downtown, there are lots of them.
“We discovered this bat colony when the San Antonio River Authority was constructing the Museum Reach,” says SARA's Kayla Gasker, talking about bats that live under the stretch of I-35 between the Pearl Development and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
“The underpass of the bridge has the perfect structure for these bats to hang in.”
So that's what they do—they just hang out there—tens of thousands of them. And Ms. Gasker pointed out something surprising you may not know about them.
“The bats under the I-35 bridge are all males, whereas the bats that are under the Congress Street Bridge in Austin are a maternal colony, so they’re all females.”
To highlight these bats, starting 7:30 next Tuesday, and every Tuesday night through August 11th the River Authority and partner organizations are going what they call Bat Loco. They shut down traffic on the Newell Street and create an event so you can learn all about bats.
“The Bat Loco series is a series of educational talks, and it culminates with our Bat Loco Bash, which is our family-friendly festival.”
Food trucks, kid activities, a mascot, live music, Bat Man and even a bat car for the Bat Loco Bash (starting at 6:00 PM) on August 11th. But on the other Tuesday nights, the star of the show is the one that takes wing.
"They come out at dusk and do their nightly feeding and so the public get to see them fly out" said Gasker. "All of the Bat Loco educational talks and Bat Loco Bash are Free to the public. We just ask you to come out with an open mind, and maybe a slight interest in bats.”
We've more on the Bat Loco events here.
