It was nice to get out and go someplace this year for Mark’s birthday.
Not too far from our house is the second largest bat population in the world that is open to the public.
We have been to many bat caves and always enjoy the show. This sounded like something fun to do so we made reservations along with a reservation for a beautiful cabin in the hill country.
We left our house and drove to Utopia (Texas). After having lunch at the Lost Maples Café, it was too early to check into our cabin so we headed to Garner State Park.
Garner State Park is on 1774 acres in Concan.
We spent a couple of hours doing a little bird watching.
From Garner we drove back to Utopia to check into our cabin at the Utopia River Retreat.
The cabin was very nice but the best part was the back deck.
The back deck is about 25’ up in the treetops.
It sits right on the beautiful Sabinal River.
We had a couple of hours to sit and enjoy the view before heading to the bat cave.
Texas has 33 species of bats, more than any other state. The Mexican free-tailed bat became the official state flying mammal in 1995.
The Frio Bat Cave is located on a private parcel of land-locked land within the Annandale Ranch in Concan.
We met the guide at the gate entrance at 7:00 pm and followed him the 2 miles through the ranch to the Frio Cave. This was a Monday evening and there were only 3 other couples and a couple of kids.
The walk up to the cave entrance was short, a little steep, on a paved road. The wildflowers were in full bloom.
This is a maternity cave where 5-10 million bats return
each spring to give birth to their pups. After the pups are born the population
increases to 10-12 million making it the second-largest single-mammal colony in
the world.
About 7:50 the bats started emerging.
It didn’t take long before the sky was full of bats.
When it was discovered that decaying bat feces (guano) becomes saltpeter, the chief ingredient of gunpowder, a full-scale mining operation was started in the Frio Cave. Throughout the Civil War and World War I the cave provided tons of guano. The actual drying kiln for the guano is still here.
Today bat guano is collected during the winter months after the bats have headed back to Mexico. The guano is used to make fertilizer.
The first room of the cave is 225 feet wide and 80 feet long with a 40-foot ceiling. The second room, known as “the great bat den”, is roughly twice the size of a football field.
During the peak of the summer, it takes about 3 hours for all the bats to emerge. We watched them for about 45 minutes.
The next morning, we spent some time walking around the Utopia River Retreat. There are 9 cabins on 22 acres but it looked like we were the only ones here.
We walked down to the Sabinal River before spending some time on the gazebo.
Here’s Mark with some of his birthday gifts (new binoculars and hat).
We enjoyed our time in this beautiful area.
On our way back home, we stopped at Lost Maples State Natural Area in Vanderpool, for a little hiking and birding. It’s also on the Sabinal River.
We have been to this park many times but I didn’t recall ever getting a magnet.
Lost Maples is definitely magnet worthy!
Feliz Cumpleaños, Mark!
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You two do such a good job with birthdays! Cool bat info. I bet you know where the largest bat population in the world is....
ReplyDeleteYou bet we do, and we've seen it!! It is in Bracken Cave, north of San Antonio, about an hour and a half from our house.
DeleteLooks like you had a good birthday. Gifts, too. Can't beat that. Glad it was a happy one.
ReplyDeleteVirginia