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Summary We challenged four big brown bats to maneuver through abrupt turns in narrow corridors surrounded by dense acoustic clutter. We quantified bats' performance, sonar beam focus, and sensory acquisition rate. Performance was excellent in straight corridors, with sonar beam aim deviating less than 5° from the corridor midline. Bats anticipated an upcoming abrupt turn to the right or left by slowing flight speed and shifting beam aim to “look” proactively into one side of the corridor to identify the new flightpath. All bats mastered the right turn, but two bats consistently failed the left turn. Bats increased their sensory acquisition rate when confronting abrupt turns in both successful and failed flights. Limitations on biosonar performance reflected failures to switch beam aim and to modify a learned spatial map, rather than failures to update acquisition rate., Graphical abstract, Highlights • Echolocating bats use sonar to identify flightpaths through dense, cluttered scenes • Bats learn new flightpaths by switching beam aim before encountering obstacles • Bats see their environment in depth, Biological Sciences; Zoology; Animals; Ethology