Carlsbad Caverns Bat Flight, Southeast, New Mexico

 

The first thing I have to say is that I borrowed this picture from the National Park Service website because no pictures are allowed during the bat flight for the protection of the bats, and they move so quickly that an amateur photographer wouldn’t be able to get decent pictures anyway.

We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns in the early afternoon, in time to figure out our plan for the bat flight.  Every summer, hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats migrate to Carlsbad caverns where they live and have their babies in the cave before returning home.  One of our main purposes in wanting to visit Carlsbad was to see the bad flight.  And yes, it is as spectacular as it sounds!  

Each night at about sundown, the bats leave the cave to hunt for the night, then they return to the cave just before sunrise. The amphitheater is located at the natural entrance to the cave, and is built to hold a lot of people.  The bat flight program is ranger led and is free to anyone who wants to attend.  You don’t have to have an America the beautiful pass to watch this.

The natural entrance to the cave.

The bats fly at least a quarter of a mile through the caves tunnels just to reach the entrance of the cave.  If you are sitting close enough to the entrance of the cave, you can actually hear them before you can see them.  They sound like a swarm of bees as they approach the entrance.  They come out of the cave in a spiraling pattern, probably to get their bearings before heading out in huge waves on their hunt.  We watched the bats swarm out for about a half hour, before they nicely asked us to leave because of lightening in the area.  This was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen!