To the bat cave!

[Wayne Harrison]

Colony’s night moves help farms, ecosystem stay healthy
By DAVE PHILIPPS
THE GAZETTE
August 10, 2007 - 9:11AM


VILLA GROVE, Colo. - You can smell the Orient Mine a few steps before you turn the last corner on the rocky trail and see the 400-footdeep pit.

<img src="http://www.gazette.com/pictures/1186758668-0bats.jpg" align="left">A slight wind drifts from the cavern in the side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains like cold, damp breath. As you get closer, the air grows as thick, sharp and musty as an old shed long used by stray cats.

It’s the smell of tons and tons of guano dropped by the 250,000 Mexican freetailed bats that swirl from the cave each dusk like a cyclone and disappear into the night.

The bats, which are, for unknown reasons, almost all male, spend the summer in this rural roost, feasting on agricultural pests in the patchwork of grain fields that make up the San Luis Valley. This is where much of Colorado’s barley for beer is grown, and the hungry bats probably help keep the grain healthy.

In mid-September, the bats return to unknown haunts in Mexico.

But for the next few weeks, anyone who walks the trail can witness one of nature’s most spectacular displays.

<a href="http://www.gazette.com/articles/bats_25861___article.html/mine_mines.html">via Colorado Springs Gazette</a>

[Margie Haven]

The most gorgeous thing I've seen today....Thanks for sharing

[adleedy]

Very impressive