We visited the Rancho Texas Park twice during our stay. We spent the mornings in the zoo and the afternoons in the Waterpark.

We watched all four educational shows on parrots, dolphins, sealions and birds of prey.

Dolphins: (read separate blog post)

Parrots:

• we learnt about hybrid macaws:
  • Catalina Macaws are a cross of the Blue & Gold Macaw and the Scarlet Macaw
  • Harlequin Macaws are a cross of the Blue & Gold Macaw and the Green Winged Macaw.
• we watched a Blue + Gold Macaw fly several laps of the arena, they fly so much faster than our pet parrots back home.
• they demonstrated how parrots use their feet and beaks to climb.
• they also threw some waste plastic bottles and scrunched up paper onto the floor of the arena and had trained the birds to fly down, pick them up and them put them in the recycle bins!
• we saw how cockatoos use their wings and crests to communicate

There were lots of chickens and cockrels wandering about. The cockerels had huge spurs which they can use for fighting. They spent most of the time in the restaurant area eating scraps people had dropped. There were also lots of pretty tame collared doves and one even landed on mummy’s plate as we were leaving, and it started eating her leftover jacket potato. On our second visit I was able to hand fed the doves.

Crocodiles:

• they have four Nile Crocodiles
• they originate in Africa
• their habitat is rivers, swamps and lakes
• they grow to between 5-6m
• they weigh between 220-750kg
• they live between 50-70 years!
• the females lay between 20-80 eggs
• the eggs take 80-90 days to incubate
• click here to read about the differences between crocodiles & alligators

Scarlet Ibis:

Here I picked up a red feather to take home for my collection. It’s a bit bigger than our African Grey’s tail feathers and the shaft is much lighter in colour.

Birds of Prey:

• the display showed:
  • Black Kites
  • Bald Eagles
  • Griffon Vultures
  • Turkey Vultures
  • Shielded Eagles
  • Andean Condor
• Bald Eagles are born with all brown feathers. The white feathers on the head and tail appear when it is around 4 years old.
• the Andean Condor is actually a vulture
• Vultures are scavengers. They only eat dead animals, for this reason they have bald heads to keep them clean whilst they are feeding on carcasses.
• there was a collection of feathers and other bird of prey artifacts on display outside the arena in a wigwam which we had a look at.

Other animals:

• Bison
• Armadillo
• Eurasian Lynx
• Humbolt Penguins
• White Tiger