It didn’t look good for the bat flight. We hit rain well before we arrived at Carlsbad and it looked as though it was gonna be steady for the rest of the night. Never fear, wait 10 minutes and the weather changes.
We left Patrick and Sara’s around 9 am. It was a wonderful four nights and five days with them and I’m sure they are glad to see the back of us. Hopefully we weren’t too bad of company.
After we got to Carlsbad, the Hampton Inn didn’t have our room ready. It was our fault because we pulled into the inn around 1:30 in the afternoon. The desk clerk called me up a little later and asked did I have to have the rooms on the fourth floor? I usually choose the top floor to prevent hearing people above me walking around. She suggested the third floor where she could upgrade our rooms to suites. Sweet! These are really some very nice rooms with a huge desk, sitting area, and a couch that makes out into a bed, plus a king size bed.
After unwinding, we decided to find something to eat and make a decision about the caverns and bat flight. We opted for a Chinese buffet a couple of doors down from the hotel. We decided to try for the bat flight.
We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns around 6 pm and simply waited at the amphitheater.
The skies were absolutely magnificent around the caverns!
While waiting for the bats, the cave swallows entertained us. (Click here for a movie of swallows.)
The theater slowly filled and around 7:30 pm the ranger appeared and proceeded to give us a chance to ask, not about the bats, but the caverns. He asked someone to notify him when it reached 7:45.
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At 7:45 pm he began his “official” talk about the bats. Since he was facing us and couldn’t see when the bats started emerging, he asked the crowd to notify him when they started their evening flight. It was also the time he began to enforce the no electronics rule. If you try to photograph the bats with a flash, they sometimes return to the cave and don’t try to fly out again for at least another hour.
I would say it was about 8:20 pm when the bats began to emerge. It’s thought there are approximately 500,000 bats in Carlsbad and that’s not even the largest population in the U.S. The largest is in a cave near San Antonio and it is thought there are 20 million bats in that cave.
The majority of the bats in Carlsbad Caverns are the Brazilian free-tail. There are several other species in the caverns as well but the Brazilian free-tail makes up most of the population in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas and even with a population in Florida.
Jo and I both agreed it was a much fun watching the crowd as the bats. There was one little boy in a blue shirt that the parents just couldn’t control who ran up and down the aisles and in front of Ranger Anthony and Ranger Dan during the presentation. Finally the parents pulled their four kids out of the amphitheater and waited at the top for the bats.
The bats emerge and circle seven times at the mouth of the cave before heading southeast from the caverns. No, the scientists have no idea why seven circles is significant. A single bat weights about the same as three nickels. They eat their weight in insects every night. They are also migratory and in winter head to Mexico and their caves.
Bats produce a lot of guano. There are bat areas in Carlsbad that if you go there, you have to wear a hazmat suit because of the guano. Ranger Anthony said it reaches the height of a human in some areas of the cave.
Tomorrow, the plan is to tour Guadalupe Mountains National Park and maybe get in a quick day hike. Next, drive to Alpine, Texas and if we get their early enough, then a drive through Big Bend to decide what we want to hike on day 2 in Big Bend.
Stay tuned!
