Free Flying Bird Show summer 2020
You can’t fail to be amazed by the birds at the summer Free Flying Bird Show!
Please note that this event will now not be happening during the summer until further notice.
Everyday at 3:30pm from Easter to the end of September weather permitting.
Above: Beautiful macaws preparing for flight at the end of the Free Flying Show
Above: Close encounters as the birds fly through, around and above you on the picnic lawn.
The presenters are all Keepers with a wealth of experience and explain and display natural bird behaviours in a wonderfully entertaining way. The birds may vary but you will usually see a large, colourful macaw circle the stage before landing – this shows how important colour is for parrots, and then how the beak and feet work together in gathering and eating food. Other parrots help the presenters explain the role of parrot conservation and biodiversity, and how much care pet birds need.
Below: The kookaburras show their incredible natural reaction to snakes, and sometimes use visitors with hats as perches!
On many occasions you can also see Dave the Otter, showing off his skills of retrieving toy fish for rewards.
Newton the Kea parrot often appears and he shows us how important recycling is! Video below.
New birds with different skills are often introduced to the Free Flying Bird Show, all trained using ‘positive re-enforcement’.
At the end of the show, visitors are invited to come up on stage to give a donation to the World Parrot Trust in a unique way, with a small parrot, matbe a Roseate Cockatoo or Yellow-shouldered Amazons flying to visitors’ hands to pick up a pound coin, and flying back to the presenters to deposit it into a charity box.
Other stars of the show which sometimes appear… photographs below show a ‘Trumpeter’ running inbetween the children sitting on the lawn, and three beautiful Sun Conures (endangered species) are flown inbetween everyone, giving you a chance to see them up-close and take photos.
