Supplement your tacos and brisket with plenty of flora and fauna.
6 Natural Wonders to Discover in Austin, Texas

There are no bad spots from which to view the flight of 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats from under the Congress Avenue Bridge, just south of downtown Austin. Hundreds gather on the bridge itself; canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards cluster beneath it; others pause walks on the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail around Lady Bird Lake to watch. The bats typically emerge on windless and rainless nights from late spring until early fall, starting just before sundown. Their nightly flights help keep Austin’s summer evenings pleasant: a Mexican free-tailed bat can eat up to ten grams of insects in a night, many of which are mosquitoes.

Though bats get most of the attention in Austin, a slower-paced exodus takes place in early fall and spring, as monarch butterflies pass through Texas on their way to and from Canada. Zilker Botanical Garden courts the monarchs with a garden of butterfly-attracting plants such as passion flowers, which resemble big-skirted spinning dancers, and the jagged-trunked “toothache tree.”

Visitors to Barton Springs Pool may be surprised to find lifeguards leaving their stands to patrol the grass around the three-acre pool’s banks, gently informing those who break out drinks or snacks that only water is allowed. They’re not just out to kill your buzz: food and drinks are prohibited to protect the ecosystem that supports the endangered Barton Springs Salamander, a tiny, prehistoric-looking amphibian that thrives in the water flowing through the spring-fed pool from the Edwards Aquifer. If you don’t spot one of the salamanders, you can still enjoy an urban safari from the walkway on the pool’s north side, overlooking “Barking Springs.” There, hordes of dogs play in the runoff from the springs, and bathers may safely enjoy their post-swim snacks.

Austinites drive slowly near Mayfield Park and Nature Preserve, keeping an eye out for the preserve’s resident peacocks. Peafowl have roamed the elegantly landscaped property since 1935, when the ancestors of the current birds were gifted to then-owners Mary Mayfield Gutsch and Milton Gutsch. The estate, as it was, was given to the City to be used as a park after Mayfield Gutsch’s death. The best time to plan a stroll at Mayfield for peacock-watching is late winter through spring, when the males enjoy a mating season glow-up, unfurling the spectacular plumage the birds are known for.

Lady Bird Johnson, who served as First Lady in the mid-'60s, was a devout naturalist, and partly responsible for the proliferation of bluebonnets and other wildflowers across Texas every spring. In 1982, along with actress Helen Hayes, Johnson set out to create a center for wildflower research. That center, now the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, has since moved to a bigger bit of earth in southwest Austin. Especially in the spring and summer, flower peepers can commune with the native plants on the center’s 284 acres, then head down the road to Jester King Brewery to enjoy a beer among the brewery’s herd of friendly goats.

Live oaks are celebrities in Austin; many residents have favorites. One such icon is the Treaty Oak, located in a small park west of downtown Austin, which pops up throughout histories of Texas like a beloved character actor. Stephen F. Austin, founder of the first English-speaking settlement in Texas, is thought to have made one of the first territorial agreements with the Comanches near the Treaty Oak; John James Audubon, the naturalist for whom the Audubon Society is named, called the live oak “this king of all Texas trees.” The Treaty Oak has had its haters, too. In 1989, a man named Paul Stedman Cullen poisoned the tree with the herbicide Velpar, apparently in a misplaced gesture of passion for a woman. The oak’s fans donated over $100,000 to rehabilitation efforts, and it is still alive (oak) today.