Touring the Caverns was spectular but the real treat for us was the "bat flight". We arrived at the natural entrance to the cavern just before dusk. Theater-style seating is provided just outside the cavern entrance. As dusk approached, everyone was seated and had to remain quiet. Swallows circled the entrance. It is not known when the bats will start to fly. These bats leave the cave at night to hunt for food and insects and return just before dawn the next morning to feed their young. Baby bats hang from the cavern roof in clusters of several thousands. When adult bats return, they are able to find their own offspring by the sense of smell.
The swallows then disappeared and the bat flight began. Adult bats would exit the cavern and begin to circle the entrance flying around two or three times, each time, gaining altitude, then flying over the nearby mountain into the night sky. It was estimated that nearly 750,000 bats exited the cave that evening which took nearly two hours until the last bat had disappeared into the dark of the night.
