Bracken Bat Cave

Bats! Twenty million of them inhabit Bracken Cave near San Antonio. This is the largest colony of bats in the world. They are Mexican Freetail Bats and this is a maturnity cave where the mother bats have their babies and rear them until the babies are ready to take to the skies in the fall. Each night in the summer, 10 million or so mother bats leave their babies clinging to the ceiling and spend the night feeding on insects to sustain themselves and produce milk for their young.  By fall, the babies are joining the cave exodus each night so the number of foraging bats about doubles.


A trip to Bracken Bat cave is restricted to members of Bats International and their guests. My guests for this outing were my granddaughter Lucy and her friends Celeste and Hunter.  My brother, Wayne, is also a member and he joined us along with his daughter, Braydi, and her friend Ashlyn.


A person should see this event in person to get a true feeling for the amazing rush as the bats form a swirling tornado of little bodies... thousands in the air at any one moment.


A sidebar  to all this bat action were the snakes that came in close to eat the rare weaking that would hit the ground and couldn't regain flight.  We saw Rat snakes and Coachwhips.  Also, hawks are attracted to the easy feeding... we would watch them guide above the mass of bats and then all of sudden they would swoop in among the bats and grab a bat right out of the air.

Find the Coachwhip...

Hunter, Celeste, Lucy, Braydi and Ashlyn

Braydi holding a walking stick...

That Hunter is really tall

 We aren't scared of a few snakes and few million bats. Bring it on!

On the way home today, Lucy, Celeste and I visited the old Geronimo Creek swimming hole. I loved hearing Lucy telling Celeste of her memories playing in the creek.. building the rock dams, catching minnows and frogs, swimming in the deep spots, relaxing in the rapids, and more.

Lucy just had to see if she could still climb up in the old live oak.