Texas State Aquarium – Wild Flight Show

The Texas State Aquarium Wild Flight Show is pretty cool, be sure to check show times when you arrive so you don’t miss it.

The aquarium serves as a bird rehabilitation center and takes in injured birds of prey to heal them and release back into the wild.  The ones in the show are well trained and cool to watch.  For each one they’ll tell you what it is, a little bit about it and how or why the bird is in the program.  They also take volunteers from the audience to help out with the show which is very funny to watch.

Check it out, you’ll be glad you did.

This one below is Cleo the Swainson’s Hawk who was brought in severely injured.  As a result part of one wing had to be amputated and sadly she can never be released back into the wild.

 

One of the volunteers got to feed and pet this ant eater.  At first they made it seem as though something ferocious and scary was in the box and outfitted him in thick long leather gloves and goggles like a lion tamer and freaked the poor kid out a bit, he seemed quite relieved when they opened the reinforced strong box and this came out haha.

Another volunteer from the crowd was given the opportunity to get a good in flight photo.  They asked everyone with cameras who wanted a good photo.  Then they have the harris hawk fly directly at the poor woman and land right behind her head missing her by inches.      It looks like she may have gotten a good close up and blurry picture of its feet with her eyes closed.

 

Stick around after the show and you’ll get to see them taking the birds out the back of the stage area back into the main building and you may get to see them taking the other critters for a walk out back.