Before I enjoyed my Shark & Stingray encounter at Ocean World Adventure Park, I had a chance to wander through the bird sanctuary.

The bird sanctuary is comprised of three sections; one for love birds, one for parrots and one for toucans.

I immediately headed for the love birds cage.

Two doors prevented birds from flying away, but allowed me to walk into the large open-air cage.

I carefully stepped over a small gathering of birds on the ground and found a spot out of the way, to watch.

As if they had been waiting for the perfect red-headed mobile tree, they swarmed me in a sudden flapping of feathers and squabble for space.

With two birds on my left shoulder, three on my right and what felt like a few more on the top of my head, I stood wide-eyed in confusion over what had just happened.

I giggled. The birds didn’t like that.

They hopped around re-positioning themselves from my movement and tweeted (no–the birds are not on social media) at each other.

There were other people in the cage with me, including two families with small children.

Two kids seemed to have different reactions to the birds. The girl was absolutely loving it, playing with the birds and feeding them, barely even taking notice to the one sitting on her head. The boy was all but screaming in terror and the birds flocked his shoulders.

A young couple admired the birds together, laughing and having a good time.

A lady working in the habitat handed me a pile of feed and instructed me to extend my arm and open my palm. I did.

The birds swooped in from every corner of the cage. They were hungry and they knew that I had food. They piled onto my shoulders and head, as well as up and down my arm and in a pile on my hands.

Their little claws pinched my skin, but not painfully. They stepped around my palms, pecking for food and cautiously inspecting the surface.

I couldn’t stop smiling, these little love birds were impossible to dislike and beautiful to look at. They were so colourful and no two were alike.

Eventually, I stepped back through the double doors and walked around to the next cage. Parrots.

As I entered this cage, I was greeted by a large Blue and Gold Macaw. He squawked and flapped his wings at me. I greeted him back and watched him for awhile.

To his right was a brilliant Rainbow Macaw, cleaning his feathers on a wooden pole. I couldn’t get over the way the colours faded from one to the next on his wing. It really was a rainbow against his bright red body.

Without leaving the cage, I stepped through another door and found myself in the Toucan room.

There were two different types of toucans in here; Keel-billed toucans and Toco toucans.

The Keel-billed toucan was confident and proud of his good looks. He posed and paraded around for me to take photos. He wanted all of the attention and knew that he could get it.

I have to admit–I have a weird fear of Toco toucans. I didn’t notice him at first, so I thought that I was safe with his friend of lesser evil. It wasn’t until I started to walk toward the exit that I saw him, between me and the door. Twitchy little Toco.

There is just something about them that creeps me out. They move in the same fashion as the living dead in certain horror movies and then throw you off with a confusing game of head bobbing.

Their eyes are black and surrounded with orange like a clown and they seem to taunt you with their piercing empty gaze.

I shuddered and quickly made my way to the door, without looking away from him.

Behind the viewing rooms was a private area where birds are taken to recover. They house injured birds and nurse them back to health.

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This trip was made possible by Go Dominican Republic and Ocean World.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.