Bat Chats

The following tips will help you have a safe, fun-filled, batty viewing:

• The bat emergence time from the bridge is not completely predictable. The bats usually emerge after dusk each night. The emergence times vary, known only to the bats themselves. Sometimes the bats surprise viewers & emerge before sunset or well after dark. Try to arrive about 15 - 30 minutes before the official sunset time for that evening. Have a seat & enjoy the evening while waiting for the bats to emerge. On rainy or cold nights, the bats might delay their emergence & will stay home in the crevices if the temperature is below 50 degrees at sunset. The thickness of the emerging cloud of bats varies between several hundred per minute to several thousand. If the emergence is small one night, come back again & again. The highest bat population at Waugh Drive is usually in August & September. Some of the best emergences have been observed in the summer & fall months.
• Bat Chats are held on the first (1st) and third (3rd) FRIDAY nights each month, year-round. To hear the Bat Chat about bats in general and the Waugh Bridge Bat Colony, please arrive 30 minutes before sunset and meet at the Viewing Platform, corner of Waugh Dr and Allen Parkway. Houston Area Bat Team volunteers will be available at the bridge to answer questions and assist with viewing. The Houston Area Bat Team volunteers participate from the Houston Parks & Recreation Department, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, several Texas Master Naturalist chapters, the Houston Zoo, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, and the Bayou Preservation Association.
• Prior to emerging from the bridge, the bats chatter social calls to each other among the crevices. Please don’t stand beneath the bridge during this time because the bats tend to void wastes in preparation for flight. Eventually the bats begin dropping from the crevices, often forming a whirling vortex beneath the bridge. Researchers believe this vortex allows the bats to gain altitude & speed. Then the bats exit the bridge on the east side, often flying along the bayou toward Downtown.
• Wildlife predators often lurk along the eastern banks of Buffalo Bayou, waiting for the bats to emerge each evening. Visitors have observed red-tailed hawks, cooper's hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, and peregrine falcons swooping into the cloud of bats as they exit the bridge. Night herons often wait on the bayou banks beneath the bridge to catch bats as well. It is all part of the predator-prey cycle of life. Once the light has grown too dim for birds to see well, the birds go to roost and the bats are able to fly freely through the night, hunting for insects.
• May through August is baby bat season at the bridge. Each female Mexican free-tailed bat gives birth to one pup, usually in May or early June. The first of the little pups begin flying in early July. As the young bats take their first flights around the bridge, they've been described as looking like large butterflies due to their rapid wing beats.