Monday, November 9, 2009

The Bats Of Balmorhea State Park



Renita and Molly returned from their evening walk and told me, well at least Renita did, about the clouds of bats that flew out of one of the campsites ramadas. The next day she showed me the ramada and it seemed pretty hard to believe that bats could actually be hiding in the small spaces in the baked clay tiles.
However Renita is a Junior Ranger, duly sworn and badged, so I had to believe her and the next evening I went out and took a seat across from camp site four. People were walking their dogs and they kind of looked at me inquisitively but I just said hello as I didn't think they would be bat lovers. I waited about half and hour and then it started to happen. A bat flew from the other side of the ramada's tile roof. I moved to that side and was soon rewarded with a steady stream of bats leaving their day time lair.
They flew up and foamed a small cloud before dispersing for their evening meal. More bats flew out of the other side of the roof and then another stream swarmed out of campsite two's covered picnic table. It was awesome as I was right in the stream and the bats flew above and around me!
You just never know what you are going to see when fulltiming and the bats of Balmorhea are going to provide me with a Halloween story for years to come! That reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time when I had seven black widow spiders crawling on my shirt? Clear skies



ps The bats were too fast and the light too low for our little camera. This is the first time I wish I had a digital video camera. It was darker than the images show.

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