Christmas Present: Animal Encounters
Pomerode Falconry and Zoo
When traveling, we don’t have space for physical presents, so instead, we gift each other experiences. This Christmas, we drove to Pomerode, another German town 30 minutes north for a unique experience: falconry. Out in the countryside, down a couple miles of dirt road, we found ourselves in a small clearing in the Morres Azul forest where we spent an hour and half interacting with falcons.
We first met Cirrus, a small male Harris Hawk who looks like a funky chicken when he runs around but transforms into a graceful bird of prey when he flies. We took turns having him fly to our gauntleted hands, using little bits of raw meat as bait. Sometime one of us would pretend to have meat. Cirrus would fly towards the gauntlet, but at the last minute he would notice the lack of bait and fly away or drop onto the ground.
We had a lot of opportunities to study the hawk’s feathers, and stare into its eyes. It would hop onto our shoulders or heads sometimes. Cirrus is extremely light, so it would feel like a little falcon head massage. He was also amenable to being pet, especially on his chest!
Cirrus also demonstrated his in-flight hunting. He catches food in mid air by flying upward and then extending his talons above its head to snare the tossed bait. In real life though, Cirrus didn’t attack any birds. In fact, two tiny little birds constantly pecked at Cirrus’ back as he flew around!
We spent time with another harris hawk, this one a larger female. She was less friendly than Cirrus though and shied away from being touched.
As a final surprise, a cute barn owl came to play. Spy is nocturnal so didn’t do any flying, but she was happy to stand on our gloves and get scratched on the head and cheeks. She shed a lot of feathers which Baby Bear was happy to collect.
After the falcon experience, we had lunch at a cute German beerhall/restaurant with live music. It felt like mini-oktoberfest. Then we went to the Pomerode Zoo. Now, we’ve been to a lot of zoos before, many of the famous world-class zoos, but every one of them (even small ones) has a couple of great unique exhibits. Here’s what we like best at the Pomerode Zoo.
The small anteaters were super cute, especially the way they walk on their knuckles. One of them kept walking around in circles while the other would occasionally squash him and then explore the cage.
They had a really great hippo feeding. You could look right into their mouths as they held them open for cleaning.
We also saw a few animals endemic to Brazil that I had never seen before. One was a fox with super long legs, like a mix between a giant fox and a deer. The other was a “furao” or ferret with super unique two-toned fur and a inquisitive personality.
The most unique animal we saw though was a dinosaur walking around the park! It was very friendly and liked to play with the kids.
We spent an hour there just relaxing at the giraffe exhibit. We sat at the little cafe right in front of the exhibit and had some acai while watching the giraffe eating its grass.
A bunch of little quail-like birds would make looks around the enclosure while little sparrows bathed in the sand. There was also a very large ostrich which kept eating imaginary food off the fence. We loved it so much that we stayed until closing time!
Next up, Balneario Camboriu, known as little Rio and the home of the 2nd largest New Year’s Eve celebration in Brazil! Time for some craziness.