The Bats Emerge

8 April 2024

The second big event of the day - watching the bats emerge from their cave at dusk. With over 10 million bats, the Frio Bat Cave has the second largest population of Mexican free-tailed bats in Texas - probably in the world. It’s the largest population that is accessible to the public. It can take up to three hours for all the bats to exit the cave. We watched until it got too dark to see the bats. During that hour, we estimate we saw between 2 and 3 million bats leave the cave!

The gate opens at 7 PM for bat viewing. A long line of cars had already formed for the dusty drive in.

Ready for the bats to emerge.

Bats flying out of the cave.

Bats flying out of the cave.

Bats flying out of the cave in slow motion.

The chaos of bats coming out of the cave.

The bats organize into a stream. A red-tailed hawk (upper left) is ready to pick off one at a time for his evening meal. A merlin also came for his dinner.

Streams of bats from the two main cave entrances converge.

More bat video in slow motion.

A river of bats.

The bats head out to eat insects over agricultural fields. They look like smoke in the distance. They even show up on weather radar.

An Afternoon at the Frio Bat Cave

8 April 2024

After the eclipse, we hung out at the Bat Cave, rather than leave and return later to see the bats.

One of two main openings to the cave. The other opening is usually off-limits to visitors.

The cave is still mined for bat guano during the winter, when the bats have gone to Mexico. (10 million bats produce a lot of guano!) In the past, the guano was roasted in this kiln to make nitrates for fertilizer and gunpowder.

An end view of the kiln.

Lon, with a view back to the road, parking area, and the news crew’s vehicles.

Texas Hill Country.

Our vans in the parking area, along with ready-to-ship guano. This is where we had our picnic lunch and dinner.

Since we were the only group at the cave in the afternoon, the ranch manager let us see the other large entrance. Guano operations had been suspended for the summer, but it was thick on the floor.

In addition to being a home for bats and cave swallows, there was a large bee colony in the cave.

One of several holes in the ceiling near the main entrances. These holes are too small and too steep for the bats to use.

Sage could be found throughout the viewing site.

Prickly pear cactus was also ubiquitous.

A green lynx spider eating a bee on a prickly pear.

We finally got to see a pyrrhuloxia - southern cousin to the northern cardinal.

We were entertained by a rock wren who had a nest deep in the large rocks that served as “bleachers” for the bat cave. She was constantly bringing back insects to feed her nestlings.

Rock wren with cricket or grasshopper.

Total Solar Eclipse

 8 April 2024

The main event has arrived! We arrived at the Frio Bat Cave around 10:30 AM after a 3 1/2 hour drive from Laredo. Now all we had to do was settle in and wait.

Gathering at the viewing area - for both the eclipse, and later, the bats. ABC News and National Geographic were there to broadcast live. (Blogger won’t let me upload even a single frame screenshot.)

The clouds were rather thick - not a good omen. But occasionally the sun would poke through.

Patrick Treuthardt, astronomer with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, explains the eclipse with a model.

More explanations from Patrick.

Ready for totality.

A crescent sun through light clouds. In some respects, the clouds made it easier to photograph the partial phases, since a solar filter was not needed.

Getting closer to totality.

Almost there.

Totality! The four minutes went by quickly, but this was much longer than our previous eclipses: about 2 minutes in Oregon in 2017, and only 1 minute in Australia in 2023. During totality, we had about three 5-second views of the corona. The darkness was nearly complete between the blocked sun and the clouds.
I had my camera set for what worked great for previous eclipses, but neglected to account for the clouds, so the photos were very underexposed. Photoshop was able to resurrect some details - including solar prominences (red spots along the rim). Since the sun is very active now - near the solar maximum for sunspots - there were plenty of solar flares this year. 

The partial phase after the eclipse. This photo was taken with the solar filter on my camera (hence the orange color), and you can tell that there were still some light clouds in front of the sun.

The ABC News / National Geographic crew packing up.

Estero Llano Grande State Park

 7 April 2024

Estero Llano Grande State Park near McAllen, TX, is another birding hot spot.

Yellow-crowned night heron.

Yellow-crowned night heron.

Hooded oriole.

Great-tailed grackle.

Northern cardinal (female).

White-winged dove.

Golden-fronted woodpecker.

Javelina (collared peccary).

Alligator.

The brown anole, originally from the Caribbean, is highly invasive and is threatening native anoles, such as the green anole.

Prickly pear cactus flower and buds.

Prickly pear cactus bud.

Coral bean (Erythrina herbacea)

Sabal Palm Sanctuary

 6 April 2024

Sabal Palm Sanctuary is a former Audubon sanctuary now run by the Gorges Science Foundation. It lies along the Rio Grande near Brownsville, Texas.

The Sanctuary is actually on the southern (Mexican) side of the border fence - north of the Rio Grande, but south of the fence. Verizon Wireless welcomed us to Mexico.

Border fence.

Looking at ...

... red-crowned parrots.

Great blue heron.

Juvenile gray hawk.

Mabel orchard spider.

Green anole.

Tree covered in Spanish moss.

Palo verde flowers.

Unidentified red flower and beetle.