Tropical Realm - 21/04/2010

Tropical Realm renovations at Chester Zoo. Balcony aviaries (multiple species), originally home to Chester\'s collection of birds of paradise.

The narrowness of the space available to the birds automatically limits its suitability to those species (and individuals) most tolerant of human presence.It looks fine in the photo without a visitor in sight, but the reality in such a popular zoo must be of a regular flow of people along the aviary.Tolerance of humans is one of the top criteria I would use to select birds for this particular space.A wonderful off-exhibit space or for a private or semi-private collection, but tricky for a busy zoo I would have thought.

It should be noted, if you haven't visited Chester, that there is no through-route along this corridor (not since the nocturnal house was closed many years ago) and that it's easily the quietest part of the house.

When I took that photograph today, the "Feed the Birds" talk was under way and a fair few visitors were in the Tropical Realm, but not one of them ventured along this particular pathway.

For the record, species currently exhibited here include: red and yellow barbet (Trachyphonus erythrocephalus), orange-headed ground thrush (Zoothera citrina), royal starling (Cosmopsarus regius), the Mindanao bleeding-heart dove (Gallicolumbia criniger), white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus) and the Socorro dove (Zenaida graysoni). There is another aviary seen in this photograph at the far end of the corridor that houses white-crested turaco (Tauraco leucolophus), Congo peafowl (Afropavo congensis), brown-breasted barbet (Lybius melanopterus) and snowy-crowned robin chat (Cossypha niveicapilla).

There are more, but my recollection runs out at that point, remembering all the free-flying species is difficult enough.

I have to agree with SMR, this is an extremly quite area of the zoo and as long as visitor numbers arent too huge, you can often find yourself the only visitor up there. The Realm on the whole, has always one of my favourite areas of the zoo but this block does stand out, if only for the wonderful array of species.

To add to the above list I believe there are also Asian Fairy Bluebird, Brazilian Tanager, Chestnut Backed Thrush, Luzon Bleeding Heart Doves, Green Wood Hoopoe and maybe 1 or 2 others. Bleeding Heart Doves seem to be a favourite at the moment and can be seen in a good 3 aviaries.