Birds of Prey Center: Fly Like an Eagle to This Boise Family Attraction
Boise’s Birds of Prey Center isn’t only for the birds. Unfeathered visitors are welcome, too; the Birds of Prey Center is especially appealing to kids because these aren’t just any birds. They’re top-of-the-food-chain raptors.
As you drive up a long hill to the center, you can probably see ravens, a turkey vulture or even a red-tailed hawk circling overhead. Only 15 minutes from downtown Boise, the undeveloped, 600-acre hilltop surrounding the center feels like wilderness. The sage steppe ecosystem is ideal for raptors, which feast on ground squirrels and rabbits surrounding the center, while employees of the center need the space for its several buildings and numerous raptor aviaries.
Your first stop should be the Morrison Interpretive Center. Several rooms are filled with exhibits on raptors found in Idaho and worldwide, and the kids’ discovery room demonstrates how raptors hunt. Most popular, of course, is the corridor past live birds, where you’ll come within a few feet of large birds like a gyrfalcon (from the Arctic) and a harpy eagle (from Central America). You can also watch short films in a small theater.
Four live bird presentations are given each day in the center, plus two tours where visitors learn about the 3,000-year-old sport of falconry in an authentic, goat-hair nomadic tent. Both are fascinating. The falconry tours are conducted in the center’s archives building, where you’ll also see Arabian and British falconry exhibits, a display of ornamental falcon hoods and original art that depicts falconry.
Many live raptors, including two condors and three species of eagles can be seen outside the center’s buildings, too. A short hiking path on the grounds debuts in summer 2011.
As the headquarters of the Peregrine Fund, much of the World Center for Birds of Prey’s work is hidden from view from the 35,000 annual visitors, like its research efforts and a breeding program for 50 condors. But there’s enough to see and do that it’s well worth the trip up the hill.
HelloBoise Tip: Take the Behind the Scenes Tour (Wednesday to Friday, $75) to be led inside 23 birds’ indoor and outdoor enclosures, where you’ll meet them eye to eye, from tiny kestrels to burly eagles.
Posted on May 8, 2011 by Bob Cooper
