Jurong Bird Park » Jurong Bird Park

Jurong Bird Park
23-01-2008

so i finally made it to the jurong bird park the other day. they certainly had some spectacular species i had never seen before that was quite amazing to watch.

definately the stand out for me was the turacos. i love turacos. they remind me of little archaeopteryx's sailing about in the canopy all flashes of crimson wings, then chosing to hop through the canopy with all the agility of an animal that walks on the ground. i had no idea the bird park had so many turaco species! they must have a "full set"....

the flamingo lagoon was pretty impressive. i counted about 200 individuals of each species (the greater and unfairly named lesser flamingo, which is actually much more impressive than its larger cousin). i noticed the caribbean flamingos are kept separate in another lagoon, i assume this is to stop them hybridising with the greater flamingos.

i also obviously loved the BOP. the stellar sea eagles and shoebills both impressed me with their gargantuan size and appearance and the scarlet ibis and roseate spoonbills are favorites of mine, even though i've seen them both before countless times.

overall, the park was relatively generous with the amount of space each species received.

i must also thank the singaporeans for again giving me a "jungle beats" soundtrack to accompany my experience.

the park does, however have two major things letting it down:

the penguin encounter has all the hallmarks of the equally atrocious film "happy feet" when the main character ends up stuck in an aquarium. its lame. the poor penguins and puffins live under artificial lights in a small room surrounded by fake rock and a small patch of snow that has been tossed in (many king penguins huddled in this spot). the pool is small and painted pale blue. i didn't like it at all, primarily due to the lack of real light and the small size.

the same goes for the nocturnal house, who's inhabitants almost all owls) were denied much space and lived in tacky faux habitats with plastic leaves
and concrete logs.

this of course goes for almost all nocturnal houses as we have discussed before.

in any event it was good to finally see so many bird species that i have always dreamed of seeing.

love the turacos.

23-01-2008

Patrick, I have to agree with you about the owls. What did you think of the waterfal avairy? I could have sat in there all day.

23-01-2008

yeah, absolutely amazing (though i don't know why they decided to put a monorail station in it!).

as well as the turacos i really liked the african starlings in there too. it seemed to be exclusively for south american and african birds but i didn't see any currasows or congo peafowl in there. do you know if they had any ground dwelling birds (other than the ducks and egyptian geese)?

23-01-2008

I remember following around some vulturine guinea fowl in the waterfall avairy, but I can't remember seeing other ground dwelling birds. I will have a look through my photos.

23-01-2008

damn! missed them too!

what did you think off all the pinioning that goes down at the zoo? whilst i am very well aware of this common practice, i was surprised to see how conspicuous it was in many of the birds. especially so with the pelicans who sat with their wing and a half outstretched. looked a little ugly to be honest.

23-01-2008

don't you know? Jurong's very proud of having the only walk-through aviary in the world with a monorail station in it :-)

I love Jurong, and have been there a number of times. My main problem with the place is that its so fantastic that I spend all day there. My favourite parts are the Waterfall Aviary (especially at the feeding times when all the starlings come out) and the Southeast Asian walk-through. The hummingbird aviary is also very good, and the aviary complexes for birds of paradise, hornbills and crowned pigeons are excellent. Not so keen on the parrot section, I don't think it really does them justice. The nocturnal house is terrible, and the bird of prey aviaries are too small (very high but not much side to side room). There aren't many ground birds in the park as a whole -- pheasants are a major avicultural group that is almost lacking entirely. I think the pinioning of some birds might be to try and cut some criticism of security lapses -- from what I gather the cattle egrets all over western Singapore started out as Jurong escapees, and other birds have also absconded over the years.

Btw, does anyone know if Jurong still produces a guide-book. I have an old one from the 70s I think, but last time I was there (2006) I was looking around in the gift shop and couldn't see one. I asked the girl if they sold books on the park and she gave me a bit of a withering stare and said I should try a bookshop.

23-01-2008

the Waterfall Aviary used to have lots of lories and lorikeets in it too, but they were mostly all moved out when the big walk-through lory aviary was put up. Now the Waterfall Aviary is, as you say, mostly devoted to African and Neotropical birds. Did you see the roulroul (crested wood partridge) in the Southeast Asian aviary? They're one of my favourite birds there.

23-01-2008

I didn't go to the pelican pools. i was with my wife and she isn't a big bird fan. We got the monorail back to the front instead of walking back from the waterfall avairy. i was really diappointed not to see all the different pelicans side by side.

23-01-2008

Sounds liek you had a great time pat, is lory loft any good?from an aussie perspective

on the pinioning note, i think that by doing it the birds can have a greater quality of life, take away flight and they can have access to large areas, where they can graze (or swim) all day, its alot easier than covering over an acre.

Although a place like jurong shoudl be able to have fully flighted birds in an aviary!

I have all my Ducks and Geese pinioned (or clipped), its easier to manage, My cape barrens happily share with swamp wallabies in an equally large yard, if they could fly i am sure the foxes would get them. and i cant afford to cover the area over my swamp wallabies.

24-01-2008

the downside I can see to the Lory Loft is that there are (300?) lories and lorikeets in there and they would all be hybridising

24-01-2008

yes, something i noticed too. they have for example different subspecies of rainbow lorikeet in there, and i wondered how they would stop them mixing?

i guess they could just destroy the eggs of any impure pairs?

lory loft is massive and the australian theming goes about as far as a watertank some stable gear and grass trees and boababs planted out the front. the crowd seemed to love it.

24-01-2008

he did that on the way there. Posted under the Singapore Zoo thread.

24-01-2008

thanx chlidonias! i did indeedy visit on the way there.

yeah, its an amazing collection at jurong and i pretty much saw the whole park (though i skipped the hornbills & toucans since i was a bit "hornbill'd out" after borneo).

some birds astounded me as i had never seen them in the flesh before. very glad i finally got to go.

unfortunately the flightless birds section was being rebuilt into an attraction called "dinosaur descendants". i thought jurong had some of the lesser known cassowary species (?) and i was keen to see them, but oh well.

24-01-2008

When does dinosaur decendants open?

I would also be looking forward to seeing Single wattled cassowary...

24-01-2008

yeah sorry, I have a bad habit of replying to other peoples' questions if I happen across them before they've been answered. Have to work on that :-)