Austin bats
Last night, Lizette and I went to the Congress Street Bridge in Austin and watched the bats fly out at dusk. We were standing at a point on the bridge where the bats flew out in an arc and then back under the bridge to -- as far as we could tell -- join with more bats to fly out in a flowing mass from under the center of the bridge. We could look down and watch this arc of tiny winged rodents just stream out, tiny creatures in such volume that they bumped and tumbled against each other. The sound of their high-pitched squeaking and the leathery flap of their wings clacking and the woosh of air was like nothing else. All the hair on my body stood up, and my eyes filled with tears in the same way that happens when I'm in a stadium full of people having a shared emotional experience. It was powerfully moving and otherworldly and so very of this world.