On a recent trip to Austin, TX for a journalism conference, I found 1.5 million bats living in the bustling city.
No, I didn’t go walking around the streets for five days counting – they all came at once.
The “Congress Street Bats” as they have to come to be known live under … you guessed it Congress Street.
Well, in particular, the bridge.
The Congress Street Bridge looks like every ordinary city bridge. It crosses the river and connects downtown to the more residential part of Austin.
The bats, are the highlight of the night and the street.
The bridge was built in 1980 and engineers accidentally made it one of the most bat friendly places around.
Every night around dark, the millions of bats fly out from under the bridge in search of food.
The sight is amazing and the bats looks like plumes of smoke wafting through the darkening sky.
