Puy du Fou, history and legend. Part 2 - the birds

Puy du Fou, May 16th:


And now for the "Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes" (the Ball of the Fantom Birds).

This was the highlight of the park as far as we were concerned. Over 100 birds soaring over head. It was awesome, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. Lets start with just one bird.

All the birds were really beautiful. They would soar out of the trees and land on perches like this one  right in the middle of the audience.

The trained falconers did a masterful job of directing and controlling these large birds of prey.

The story line in this pageant was about a girl that had lived in the castle and always dreamed of being able to fly like a bird. 

The eagles were truly majestic.

So were all the other birds

One of the falconers put a hawk on my (Blanka) head, yes I was wearing a hat!

Bald eagle coming right at us. Yes, we ducked.

Can't remember the name of this bird but it looks like a very big stork and eats snakes.  Not easy to see from this picture but the bird is attacking a snake on the ground. The bird was incredibly fast at hopping, striking, grabbing.

Graceful condor with at least a 6 foot wing span.

Once the condors lands they can look pretty funny.

At the end of the show the music came to a climax and all the birds were released and soared over the spectators.

It was really awesome to see these beautiful creatures soar over us. 

We were able to see some of the birds even closer up.

The Puy du Fou started a sanctuary for birds of prey, especially the endangered species. They have just under 500 birds,  64 different species. The falconers have to be trained for a year before they can handle the birds at the shows.
They actually have 24 different training classes covering every aspect of the running of the park.