10/7/2023 0 Comments Beautiful nature scenery near me![]() If you're interested in going, you have to join Bat Conservation International with a small donation. A lot of people are fearful of bats, but imagine how many mosquitoes they eat, and they're also pollinators. It was amazing - definitely an experience worth doing. We watched for a little over thirty minutes before it got too dark to see them anymore. It takes hours for them to leave the cave. They swirl around in what looks like a bat tornado getting higher and higher until they reach the point where they can trail off into the sky. At about 8:00 the bats started exiting the cave - close to 20 million of them. Hawks also circle overhead looking for easy prey. ![]() As it got dark, we saw several raccoons head down to the entrance of the cave we had no idea that they were predators for the bats. We opted to go the cave to take photos before it got dark. Once you reach the site, you can either attend the bat lecture in the covered area or head to the wooden benches that sit across from the entrance to the cave. As we were driving, we had several deer run across the road in front of us. Once inside we were greeted by a nice lady who checked our names off the list and told us to head on down the gravel road. If you reach Natural Bridge Caverns, you've gone too far. Look for the orange cones just past a subdivision called Seven Hills Ranch on the left hand side of the road if you're coming from San Antonio. The driveway where you turn is a bit hard to find. It was a rainy day, and we weren't sure if they would still allow visitors in or if the event would be cancelled. The Bracken bat flight is something you have to see to believe. Today, with only a few exceptions, Brackenridge Park remains remarkably unchanged since the 1940s. After the quarry was abandoned in 1916, it became the site of the Japanese Tea Garden. Aside from the springs and the river, the rocky outcroppings west and below the headwaters were the city's largest and most consistent source of high-quality hard limestone that was quarried and used to construct buildings throughout the city. Imagine, if not for the springs and the river, Native Americans and Spanish explorers never would have camped here and the presidio, mission and village that grew to become San Antonio, the second largest city in Texas, would never have been established. All of which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Mary's Street, on the city's Broadway Corridor just north of the downtown area, the park was created in 1899 and has now grown to include such popular attractions as the San Antonio Zoo, the Witte Museum, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Sunken Garden Theater, the Tuesday Musical Club, the San Antonio Botanical Garden, the DoSeum and the two-foot narrow gauge San Antonio Zoo Eagle train ride. It is a rich tapestry of history linked by the San Antonio River that rises from springs above and in the park and flows through the park on its southeasterly course to the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing tells the visitor that the park represents a long timeline reaching back at least 12,000 years. The casual visitor to Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Texas, may be totally unaware that the 349-acre park, with its picnic areas, baseball fields, playgrounds, pavilions, walking trails, museum, zoo and golf course, occupies some of the most historically rich land in the city.
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