The wide open spaces of the National Park have preserved their traditional pastoral use, with herds of gray cattle grazing in the pastures and wetlands, a perfect place for a stopover for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds each year. Doctors at the hospital have been saving the lives of these protected birds since 1999, by giving them prosthetic legs and fixing their wings, with around 40 percent of them eventually returning to the wild after a full recovery.

"What we love the most is when we receive birds that we can treat to full recovery, and set them free again," said veterinary physician Janos Deri, who founded the hospital. The birds which cannot return to the wild stay at the center, to the delight of tens of thousands of visitors every year.

They can watch the birds being operated on and treated, as the hospital also serves as an education center. "We ... have learned about some of the birds in the area and it is good to see the injured birds that are being taken care of," Greg Lauttrull, 57, a structural engineer, visiting from Houston, Texas.