Dan is so excited to be back home in the desert. He moved to Southern Arizona in the 5th grade and graduated from Willcox High School.
The image of Count Dracula transforming into a bat in the blink of an eye, flying off into the darkness to terrorize helpless citizens is an image that hasn't done the actual bats that fill up our skies any favors.
But this weekend, on the verge of International Bat Night, no matter how creeped out you feel, we should give credit where credit is due.Because life in the desert would be miserable without them.Whether you drive across it, take a brisk walk, or bike underneath it, the Campbell Avenue bridge over the Rillito Wash is functional like the other 1,200 or so bridges across Pima County.They get you from A to B and, in this case, the 'B' stands for something.But if you stop and smell the guano, you quickly realize this is no mere bridge.It's home to thousands of bats that emerge every night after sunset, while during the day there's almost no sign of them other than the actual signs that mark their territory.And an iron sculpture of a bat family on bicycles.'Big brown bat, that's what she is. We're very descriptive when we talk about animals sometimes.'Crystal Holcombe at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum brought out her favorite not-so-big little friend Queen Eliza-Bat.'They're pretty small but they have incredible appetites,' Crystal told me.And we should be thrilled that they do. A single bat can eat up to 1,000 insects an hour. Can you imagine how many more mosquitoes we'd have if the bats weren't going to bat for the rest of us?Would you believe that this beautiful desert landscape wouldn't be possible without bats?They're pollinators.Now typically that designation goes to the bees and with good reason.But so many of the bats in our region eat nectar, feeding on flowers and spreading pollen from plant to plant.That's nectar... not blood.'There are vampire bats,' Crystal said, 'but there's only 3 species in the entire world of 1,400 that will drink blood and of those, only one will drink mammal blood.'Arizona has more species of bats than any other state except for Texas...If you're patient and can wait for just the right moment: Bingo.It's a bat bonanza as thousands take to the skies over another bat bridge, this one on Broadway Blvd over the Pantano Wash.These colonies put on a show all summer long before many of them migrate south toward warmer weather.Within a matter of weeks you won't see this incredible sight of thousands of bats silhouetted against the Tucson sky.Crystal told me sometimes you don't even have to leave your yard to see them - if you've got a bird feeder.'As long as you sit still and wait, they'll come and just feed right in front of you. So you can see these amazing bats flying all around,' Crystal said.At 200,000 strong, Arizona's bat population, despite the bad guy reputation in pop culture, is doing the hard work for humanity and making life in the desert possible.
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