We went to Rode Bird Gardens on the second day of our holiday and
it turned out to be one of the highlights. The setting is quite delightful,
with graceful terraces and towering trees setting off the aviaries. The range
of birds at Rode is quite awesome, and the best thing is the large number of
them, particularly the macaws, that are completely free-flying. Our first clue
that this was the case was a sung "Hello" from the top of a very
large willow.
There are a number of very friendly and inquisitive blue &
gold macaws at Rode, and these provided a couplke of hours of entertainment for
us. These birds are friendly in the extreme and tame enough to get up on
complete strangers' hands (something we're still trying to get our two parrots
to do consistently). Mind you, they share our birds' live of fiddling with
anything they can get their beaks on, but thankfully managed not to damage
anything.
The macaws have their own climbing frame that visitors
can go right up to. It was great, though, to see them flying, singly and in
groups, about the estate, something one rarely witnesses in this country.
Naomi and I have been discussing getting a third parrot for a
while now, and have settled on getting a macaw eventually. Our day at Rode Bird
Gardens has virtually decided us on getting a blue & gold rather than a
green-wing (which is slightly bigger) because they are much cheekier and more
entertaining. My own favourite would be a hyacinth macaw (the biggest variety),
but these are very rare and endangered and there are only about two people in
this country that breed them outside zoos. As the going rate is about
£14,000 for a breeding pair, I suspect this will always be beyond our
reach.
In all our visits to zoos etc, the parrots are always very
socaible, but the softbilled birds are generally very timid. We found the
exception to this at Rode, though: Naomi fell in love with a particular
azure-winged magpie who was silly-tame, and came up to us demanding a cuddle
and a scratch on the back of his head.
Rode is a stupendous day out and I recommend it whole-heartedly. There's a very good café near the entrance, plenty of places to sit and enjoy the birdsong, and enough to keep you interested for most of a day.