Bat Flight Breakfast
Bat Flight Breakfast
Although many visitors to the park witness the bats' spectacular outbound flight at sunset, when they leave the cave in a dense black cloud for their night's feeding in the Pecos River Valley, far fewer are there to witness their return—except those who attend the annual Bat Flight Breakfast. Started in the late 1950s by a group of park employees who wanted to encourage people to witness this natural phenomenon, the breakfast soon became an annual tradition. About 400 people arrive at the cave before sunrise on the second Thursday in August and eat sausages and scrambled eggs in their official yellow "bat breakfast hats" while they wait for the bats to return to their roosts. It is said that the bats generate an eerie sound as they rocket downward with folded wings.
When a television crew was there to film the event in 1989, the bats failed to return as expected. No one is sure how or when they got back into the cave, but 13 hours later, at sunset, they left in droves as usual.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
3225 National Parks Hwy.
Carlsbad, NM 88220
505-785-2232; fax: 505-785-2133
www.nps.gov