When I imagined Austin, I thought about the funky South Congress Avenue area and the river. I did not think about parks, hikes, and waterfalls. However, given my appreciation for state parks, I reserved a spot at McKinney Falls State Park – and hiked around the park to the Upper and Lower Falls before moseying into town.

Totally cool? I arrived, at dusk, at Congress Avenue Bridge where I saw people gathered under the bridge on the river’s shoreline. Being curious, I walked down the staircase and asked what was happening. Little did I know about the BATS!

“Austin’s resident bats are Mexican free-tailed bats, which migrate each spring from central Mexico to various roosts all over the southwestern U.S.

On their nightly flights the bats eat anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects, including mosquitoes and harmful agricultural pests.

At the end of the season, you can see roughly 1.5 million bats ascending into the summer sky.”

https://www.austintexas.org/things…/outdoors/bat-watching/

Desert climate for sure!

 

McKinney Falls State Park hike.

 

Upper Falls: “Water cascades through natural channels within a massive bed of exposed limestone and volcanic ash.”

 

Old cypress tree.

 

Prehistoric Rock Shelter: “Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this limestone overhang provides shelter for Native Americans for more than 8,000 years.”

 

Onion Creek.

 

Lower Falls which “flows over limestone ledges to the pool below.

 

Horse Trainer’s Cabin: “Two-room structure built in 1950s for Thomas McKinney’s horse trainer.” McKinney, a racehorse breeder and one of Stephen F. Austin’s original colonists, owned this homestead.

 

Funky South Congress Avenue district of Austin.

 

View of the city from underneath the Congress Avenue Bridge.

 

Bats! All of those flying dots are! (Click on photo for a six-second video.)

 

Sunset from the bridge.