Sylvan Heights Bird Park is a zoo in Scotland Neck, NC (1.5 hours East of Raleigh) that is dedicated entirely to birds! 🦜 This is your chance to get up close and personal with over 2,000 parrots, toucans, flamingos, and other exotic birds from all over the world!
Visitor Center
Once you arrive, you’ll be greeted by the visitor center adjacent to the gravel parking lot. Here you will buy your tickets and enter the park. I believe there’s also a gift shop inside when you exit, but that part was closed when we visited during the COVID-19 pandemic so I’m not entirely sure. As for other pandemic procedures, guests were asked to wear masks when purchasing tickets and interacting with staff, but you may remove your mask once you are safely inside the park and socially distanced from others. Masks are required when in The Landing Zone though.
The Landing Zone
The Landing Zone is immediately to your left once you enter the park. It’s a spot you definitely won’t want to miss! Here you are in a giant room with free-roaming birds and parakeets that will perch on your head, shoulders, and arms! You can purchase optional food sticks for $1.50 to entice them to land on you and eat from your hand.
We had so much fun in this room and it was by far the highlight of our visit. It was crazy having the birds land all over you to get to the food. My 2 year old loved it so much he would shove his food stick in a bird’s face so it would walk up his arm. My 4 year old, however, was terrified. She didn’t want to hold a food stick at all in fear a bird would land on her. She enjoyed watching all of us interact with the birds, and ended up playing peekaboo with a flamingo instead. 😂
the ONLY picture of my 4 year old holding a bird. It was NOT her favorite thing! 
playing peekaboo with a flamingo 
My 2 year old chasing down the birds!
The only drawback from The Landing Zone is that it has limited hours. The Landing Zone aviary is open throughout the year from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. and from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. We arrived in the park at 9:30 a.m. and had to kill some time until it opened at 10 a.m. It’s definitely worth the wait though!
Birds From Around the World
After leaving the Landing Zone we headed out to explore the rest of the park. The park is separated into the countries of the world for easy reference. Wander through South America to meet macaws and spoonbills and Africa for maccoas and Hottentot teals. To my surprise, a lot of the time you are in the “cage” with the birds. There’s just a small wooden fence between you and the smaller birds, and they are free to roam the path around you. We had some fun encounters with a blue-crowned pigeon who followed us throughout the park!
At the entrance of the bird park you can buy an optional bag of food that you can feed most of the birds in the park. This can make your visit a little more fun since the birds like to come up and beg for food. I also appreciated that there were clear signs when you can’t feed the birds, which prevented any confusion. Aloha Safari Zoo also sells optional food bags, but I never knew when we could safely feed the animals and when we couldn’t! It was so excitingly scary to feed the birds directly from our hand, but none of them mistook our fingers for food so I’d say they know the drill!
a collection of photos from our time at Sylvan Heights Bird Park
Beaver Pond Blind
My family was determined to cover every inch of the bird park while we were there, so when we saw a trail leading off of the park map we were highly intrigued. Initially it looked like we were leaving the park, but we followed the trail to Beaver Pond Blind and found our way to an observatory to see birds in the wild.
The observatory was setup in a way you could peer out of multiple windows and see the wetland habitat all around you. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of wildlife roaming around while we were there, but it was a cool experience anyway. We also got a short trail walk in and enjoyed the treehouse overlook, which was the perfect spot for a snack break! We had the place to ourselves since I don’t think a lot of people wander that far.
walking up to Beaver Pond Blind 
viewing birds out of the windows 
short trail walk 
the treehouse overlook was the perfect spot for a picnic
The Pavilion at Toad Creek
After we wandered back in from our trail excursion, we passed the newly built Toad Hall pavilion! This would be such a unique spot to host an event! I’m imagining a wedding ceremony surrounded by the birds and then a wedding reception here at the pavilion. Find out more information about booking events here.
Playground and Picnic Area
Back near the entrance you will find a great picnic area and playground, perfect for packing a lunch and making a day of it! Of course the playground was closed when we visited during the pandemic, but once it’s reopened it will be a great spot for the kids to burn a little extra energy!
Ticketing and Park Information
We ended up spending about 2 hours at the bird park. We arrived at 9:30am and stayed until lunch. Plan your visit and get the latest ticketing information here. They offer half-off reciprocity admission to NC Zoo and Aquarium members, so if you are member take advantage of the great deal!
Even though it’s a bit of a drive, we’ve added this great spot to our list of animal encounters! It’s worth a day trip to get up close and personal with all of the different birds!