Heard this place from WH that it's a tourist attraction in Austin, well to be frank. I didn't prepare much for the trip aside from the dreaded CRP decks that I have to have in order to present our system to the business folks there. the last thing I have on my mind is to plan for where to go for any form of sight seeing. mostly just shopping perhaps...
one day, my SL just asked me "hey you wanna go for a dinner?", "sure, why not?" I've answered since it's almost the end of the trip and I haven't had the chance to eat with him officially so... there goes.
Upon hoping in the cab I noticed they mentioned the name of the place, I was very very excited that i get to go, for once I thought i'd missed it. I begged for 5 mins to go grab my gear and the next minute i was in there with them again with my bag, happy, excited, anticipating... bats.
the skies were particularly nice that day, clear, blue, skies... they dropped me at the place where they were having dinner. some sort of pub that served dinner on the other section of the restaurant.
I briefly jotted down the name, and since it's a straight line down the road, i just bid them good bye and started to walk back to the bridge where the cab driver pointed to me a while ago.
and boy, it was a long walk... bout 25 - 30mins with constant fast pace walking and brief running. bags grew heavier as I walked, not to mention the toll it caused my bag last weekend where me and Calvin walked many many miles just to get to somewhere we can grab a cab home.
when i reached the bridge, i was on the left side (standing from this angle), there were nobody on this side of the bridge. I just saw a lonesome bicycle rider and curiously i walked up to him. I asked "hey man, wassup? say, I'm here to watch the bats, can you tell me why there are nobody here but there are tonnes of ppl on the other side of the bridge?" (i roughly know the answer but i want more confirmation from locals).
look at the amount of ppl standing over at the other side of the bridge! well, turns out that on this side, the sun sets and the bats will fly out towards that direction underneath the bridge. So, carefully, i walked over to the other side of the bridge, but not without snapping a few sunset shots. >_^
Loved sunset as much as sunrise... :)
Next up, looked for a good spot and continue to snap a few shots over at the other side while waiting for the bats to come out from their slumber...
UFO?
as the skies turned darker and darker (it was already past 8pm), still looked as bright. more cruise ships with tourist passed and stopped just slightly beyond the underpass of the bridge. these gives the viewer better angle and first chance to witness the bats hanging below the bridge first.
Next, without further ado, here comes the bats.... they came out from the underside of the bridge, swirling around in circular motion... following each other... it was quite dark and cranked up my ISO all the way to ultra high doesn't appear to do any trick. So I resorted to flash... ugly, but my only option... sorry if you were hoping more... I was too... then I've learned something...
for those who doesn't know, the white thing are the bats.. poor thing flashed by me.. sorry sorry... just a few shots... :) noticed the skies turned darker and darker...
but no matter how dark the skies was getting, the water should always be even of a darker color, cos there's nothing there that shines... but the skies, at least the sun still has some effect on it. So if i were to stand off the bridge, somewhere at a lower angle, and shoot towards the skies + the bridge, i can get a better picture of the swarm... :) next time, if there's next time... i will. take this as a lesson then..
the bats swirls out in circular motion, quiet... chaotic looking to me but should be quite organized within themselves. they've pretty much adapted to these for many many years. standing just on top of them for a while can really smell the foul stench that they produce.. yyeeessshh....
after a while, they flew out towards the distant skies, searching for food... i tried zooming in and snapped a few shots.. they're fairly blurry, but pay attention to the faint dark blurry trails.. those are the bats... :)
I left after some 30mins of watching these, just as the skies about to rain, the bats are still coming out from the bridge. Amazing, think there are literary millions of bats there... such amazing sight!
This will provide slightly more info if you're interested...
:)
hard to catch lightning.... till then, this is one of my few few only shots there in Texas... :)
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