Greifvogelstation & Wildfreigehege Hellenthal

Early August we hit the road to revisit the animal park at Hellenthal in the Eifel. The park is only at 30' drive from us, and we had been there in 2019. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it was 5 years already. 

The park holds a lot of type of wild animals that are natural to our climate: deer, wild boars, goats, raccoons, otters, mouflons, ... and a big section with birds of prey.  
You can walk around and in some sections you cross a wild raster that allows you to walk amidst the curious deer. At the entrance and at various points in the park, you can buy animal food and those deer know it very well so they approach you without any hesitation. 

The park is at some valley hills near the Olaftallsperre, which you can spot very nicely. 

(see my equivalent picture from 5 years ago here)

I wasn't holding any food and it was very apparent the animals could smell that as they ignored me, while Kabouter & Beertje got harrassed with wet noses that wanted to sniffle in their jackets. 

give me more food, I'm gonna follow you until you give me more food

Obviously not all animals can be visited on their field, most are behind fences. And not all can be fed either.

We just missed the bird of prey show, but all birds are allowed to free freely for one to 3 times a day and as we noticed some caregivers spotting the sky, we heard that Picasso the eagle was profiting from his flight freely a bit and did not want to return immediately. They were on the lookout but didn't seem very stressed.  We had indeed seen a big bird flying over multiple times when we were at the playground.  

Playground fun