Watching Bats at Bottomless Lakes State Park - 4/16/10

Tonight, we decided to walk around the campground.  We ended up at one of the "lakes". The lakes are actually sinkholes which were formed when the water underground dissolved the salt and gypsum deposits. There are 8 sinkholes throughout the park.

After walking around, we sat down on the ledge overlooking Cottonwood Lake. As we sat on the edge of the sinkhole watching the sun descend over the desert, we noticed a few bats fluttering around in the sky above us. We turned our attention to the canyon wall and realized the bats were coming out of the crevices for their evening meal.

(Melissa watching the bats.)

They would exit their home in the canyon wall, fly around above us, and catch a moth for dinner.  We could hear the flutter of their wings as they made sharp 180 degree turns above the water. We listened to their squeaks as if they were calling out to their friends in the canyon and announcing that dinner was served.

As we were watching the bats fly around, Jacob noticed a baby bat on the canyon wall. We watched this young bat as he hopped around on the rock gaining his courage to set sail above the water. Several other bats would fly near him as if to encourage him or let him know he was going to miss dinner if he didn't hurry up. Within a few minutes, he jumped into to air and soared above the water like he had flown all his life.  God's creatures are awesome to observe. We felt privileged to witness
this dramatic event.

We had a great evening watching the bats and the expressions on the children's faces as the bats shot up vertically right in front of their faces. We all ducked several times thinking that a bat would mistake our head for a bug.
After about 30 minutes, Hannah and Joshua were ready to leave and Jeff was ready for them to sit down. He was concerned that they would try flying unintentionally over the canyon wall and unlike the bats land in the Bottomless Lake below.

Therefore, we all called it a night and headed back to the bus.