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.
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.
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)?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
When does dinosaur decendants open? I would also be looking forward to seeing Single wattled cassowary...
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
Glad you made it here Pat! The Waterfall Aviary is gradually being Africanized with the removal of most of the S.American and Australasian species. There are actually a pair of crowned cranes and 3 species of guinea fowl (vulturine, crested, helmeted) forming the ground-dwellers. African parrots were introduced last year, but it seems most of the Grey parrots have been removed, probably because they were causing a nuisance. Did you manage to get a glimpse of the very shy Great Blue Turaco? They are absolutely stunning. If you choose to believe park officials, there are in excess of 1,000 flamingos at the lake. Same goes for the number of lories at Lory Loft. Building Lory Loft was a very very smart move, its obviously popular and a money-spinner. And it actually isn't too bad at all for the birds, huge space. Pinioning is probably a lesser of 2 evils when displaying large water-birds like storks and pelicans. Unless the aviaries are sizeable, it really doesn't make it any better to keep them in cage and retain their flight. It will be nightmare to have 50+ pelicans or 1000 flamingos escaping en mass, so there was little choice. There are about 10 pelicans at the park which have full flight and they regularly 'disappear'. They'll return during feeding and it really is a graceful sight to see them soaring. Penguin display is understandably immensely popular. The decision to use completely artificial lighting instead of skylights is to reduce heat into the exhibit. The lights are also programmed to mimic antarctic light conditions, brighter in summer, darker in winter. As for being small, it is the 2nd largest of its kind around. I completely agree with you on the nocturnal bird house, way too small. Some of the birds do get rotated to other off-show aviaries. Sadly, there are no plans to redevelop it. The Dino Descendants display should open in June or Sept to coincide with the local school holidays. The park has dwarf and single-wattled cassowaries but on my most recent visits, which were last year, the dwarf wasn't on display.
Jurong hasn't produced a guide book in eons. The last one produced was in the late 90s to coincide with the park's 25 anniversary. Does your 70's one happen to have a flying Malay Fish Owl on the cover?
thats for that zooish. i think "africanising" the waterfall aviary is a good idea. whilst the birdpark is one of the few zoos where i quite enjoy taxonomic-based display a mix with geographical theming works well there. i don't for a second believe there are a thousand flamingoes at the lagoon. i counted more like 400-500!! but thats still amazingly impressive. the lesser flamingos have always been my favorite and i think they are the prettier of all the flamingo species. i noticed the unpinioned pelicans. and it had me guessing as to why. i understand and actually tentatively accept the idea behind pinioning, for the reasons you gave. however, what surprised me is just how much it affects the look of the birds wing. i had always figured the look was a little more subtle, or did jurong get a bit over the top with the snippers? the penguins, be it the 2nd biggest in the world, i just didn't like. i think something a lot larger with more natural light and better artistry and design would have been much better for both visitors and penguins alike. i would probably give up on the idea of the true antarctic, and go for one of the subantactic islands, with their pebble beaches and tussock grasses. most penguins are often found on these too.
In the "New Zealand Birdz" magazine from Jan 2003 there's an article on Jurong which says there are 1001 flamingoes on the central lake: "Flamingo Lake...is home to 1001 flamingos, which was the answer to a guessing competition held earlier this year" It gives the impression of a publicity stunt with some over-exaggeration of the facts
nope. Its from 1971 so it must the very first guide they published (1971 being the year the park opened); it has a king vulture on the cover and is priced at $2.50. Measurements 12cm x 16cm; 96 pages. "Sprawling across 50.3 acres on the western slope of Jurong Hill, the Jurong Bird Park is a breathtaking world attracting tourists, bird lovers and the curious. Built at a cost of over 5 million dollars, the park stands as the biggest of its kind in the world. The work of nearly 2 years has transformed the rugged hill into a wonderland of glorious scenic beauty as well as a home for over 7000 birds collected from every corner of the world. For nature lovers it is a paradise as 350 species of birds can be leisurely studied amidst beauty of sight and sound." Then it goes on to say there are 78 display aviaries and 18 transit aviaries with over 4000 individual birds. There are 3000 birds of about 100 species in the "flight-in aviary" (now called the Waterfall Aviary; the sign on this aviary in the photo says "Jurong Falls Aviary"). Entry price for the park was $1.50 for adults, 50c for children under 16. The Jurong Falls Aviary had an extra entry fee of $1 for adults and 30c for children. Tram-car ride was 40c for adults, 20c for children. The guide book itself wasn't actually about the Park's birds, just general information about groups like pelicans, pheasants, cockatoos, hornbills, etc.
