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Keep Wimberley Beautiful

Mexican Bats

One of the things I have been doing for fun this summer is visiting the downtown Cypress Creek Bridge to watch Wimberley’s bat colony fly out around dusk. These Mexican free-tailed bats (Yes, there are many other kinds of bats) have been visiting Wimberley for the past several years. Unlike in Austin, home to over one and a half million bats, hardly anyone shows up to see this fun and exciting event. Usually I invite one or two family or friends to join me and they are always surprised and thrilled to see the action.

The bats arrive sometime in April or early May and then leave for Mexico or Central America before winter. In the early arrival times, they start flying out from under the bridge sometime around 8:15 and 8:30. As the summer wears on, they start emerging between 7:45 and 8:00. You can see them stirring around and under the bridge for a few minutes and then out fly some 10,000 to 20,000. They normally fly up and through the Cypress trees and then into the sky, many heading toward the river along Flite Acres where they know they can feast on mosquitoes, moths and other insects. What a sight!

Mothers give birth to a single bat. A mother must find her own baby among the thousands of others and they are thought to do so by the call the baby makes. Mothers will not rescue a baby if it falls to the ground where a predator can make a quick meal of it.

Please don’t miss an opportunity to see this very special event up close and personal in our very own little charming town.

Written by Martha Knies

Wimberley View

P.O. Box 49
Wimberley, TX 78676
Phone: 512-847-2202
Fax: 512-847-9054