Happy Birthday Sugar!

The National Aquarium is celebrating a very special birthday today: Sugar, our umbrella cockatoo, is turning 15!

Sugar’s favorite enrichment activity is tearing up shredded newspaper. He also loves sharpening his beak on wood blocks!

Don’t forget Sugar’s favorite treats – peanuts and coconut!

Yum yum yum!

When Sugar gets excited (often by the sight of peanuts or coconut!) he raises his crest of feathers to communicate that to our staff and guests!

Sugar is one the animals you can see at our daily Animal Encounters and you can often see him in the Overlook!

Sugar LOVES to play in and with tubes!

Cardboard, PVC pipe, you name it – Basically, he loves anything he can look through!

Anyone in there?

Stop by National Aquarium, Baltimore today and you might see Sugar during one of our Animal Encounters! 

An Easy DIY Thanksgiving Craft for the Kids (or the Birds)!

We like to theme our animal enrichments around the holidays A LOT. Not only is it a fun side project for our staff, but also gives us the opportunity to re-purpose and recycle materials that otherwise would have been discarded.

Sugar showing off her cardboard turkey!

One of our favorite materials to use for these enrichment items is cardboard! This year, we decided to make some special cardboard turkeys for our birds to play with. If not being used by birds to sharpen their beaks, these turkeys also make for some festive decorations!

Margaret went right into destruction mode. She can’t resist chomping on those wooden beads!

But these playful turkeys aren’t just for our birds – they are an easy do-it-yourself project for anyone looking for some Thanksgiving craft fun! Follow the instructions below to make your own!

Cardboard Turkey

Materials:

• Cardboard cut into wedges, we used two per turkey
• Popsicle sticks, if you are purchasing these we suggest going for the colored variety
• Wooden beads
• Scissors
• Zip ties
• Permanent marker

Directions:

1. Cut the corners of your cardboard into wedge pieces, varying in size (we kept ours between 3 and 6 inches wide)
   
2. Using your scissors, carefully poke a small hold in the center of each wedge
3. Stick your popsicle sticks in the slits of the cardboard, leaving little space in between each stick
   
4. Once your wedges have their “feathers”, use the zip tie to connect the beads and wedges to make the shape of a turkey
   
5. Use your permanent marker to draw eyes on your turkey!

We hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Have a favorite Thanksgiving-themed craft? Tell us in the comments!

Orioles Magic: Our Birds Support The Birds!

Our National Aquarium birds (and reptiles) are proud that our hometown team, the Baltimore Orioles, are headed to the playoffs! They couldn’t help but break into song…

From all of us at the National Aquarium, Go O’s!