An interesting tie between Gatlinburg, bordering the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and Austin is the bats. I attended a presentation given by two young women who actually were from near Austin but were studying in Tennessee. There is a sizeable bat population there, apparently, and they allowed us to walk through the Park with noise devices that would enable us to hear the sound of the bats. They also had one with which we could get up close and personal, and that was pretty cool. I got a picture of it “hissing” at me. It reminded me of a newborn kitten with big, black, vein-y wings.
3 comments:
Bats give me serious heebie-jeebies. We recently had a teenager here in Houston die of rabies, apparently after having been bit by a bat. It was covered fairly extensively in our local paper, and was quite disturbing.
Years ago, while in school in Austin, I can remember taking the trash out late, late, late nights at the restaurant I worked it, up on the north side (still there, I think). Anyway, there was a big, well-lit sign for an auto parts dealer they used to congregate around...scary !
I didn't know there were sound devices we could wear that allowed us to hear the bats. Really interesting. Learn something new everyday.
That's an unhappy bat, too!
Post a Comment