Birds of Prey – Ballymote

written June 13th

Before coming to Ireland we tried to do some research about kid friendly places to go and things to do.  But sadly there isn’t much to do….since the weather is so shitty most of the year its hard to plan anything because you don’t know if it’ll be raining. And some of the stuff just isn’t 16month old friendly OR its over 2 hour car ride away. So yeah. Limited us to a few things BUT I’m pretty sure the kids had fun. And when I say kids I mean of course my own lovelies AND my cousins kids Jayden (4) and Addison (almost 3).

Yosh found some bird preserve place that did a Birds of Prey show…and it was in decent driving distance.  Since Owen is an animal lover we set off to Ballymote/almost Sligo area (about 45-50 min drive).  It was a cloudy, wet, chilly day BUT we made the best of it.

I’m not a big bird person BUT I have to say seeing some of these birds up close with pretty awesome.  We saw eagles, hawks, owls, etc.  The bald eagle was absolutely amazing.  Since its the “American Bird”…it felt special.  ps. he’s HUGE…the picture doesn’t make him seem that large but he was BIG!

I thought it was so cute when Owen asked our little info guy “I thought owls were nocturnal…why are these owls awake, its daytime????”  Little smarty pants!  The man told us it was because they do shows during the day and they have kinda changed their sleep patterns over time. Since they give them lots of food during the day they don’t have to be out hunting at night.  Seeing these huge birds chained up made me kinda sad…I’ll admit it. BUT the man said that most of them were saved because of illness or injury and don’t want to leave because they don’t have to work/hunt for food…they are very well fed!

They also had some puppies, guinea pigs, ferrets and turtles.

We then waited to watch the informational “show”.  Big birds flying around. Some behaving, some not. 

 

Everything was going juuuuust fine UNTIL this huge freaking eagle BIT my cousins son WHILE it was sitting on my head….sounds fake huh…yeah its not though!

This picture was taken AS Jayden was lifting his little hand to pet him (disclaimer: when bird man says don’t touch the birds, we shouldn’t touch….birdie didn’t like it!) and it nipped him. It scared the crap out of me and Owen and Jayden. Poor little dude. Took some skin off, luckily it didn’t take his whole darn finger. I’m hoping that poor Jayden isn’t traumatized forever and hate birds as an adult.