I have only visited bird collections in the UK and must admit I have now got a I must travel to see rarer species. I have visited Birdworld, Birdland, Tropical birdland, Blackpool zoo, London zoo, Chester zoo, Cotswold wildlife park, Hagley falconry centre, Cotswold birds of prey centre, Hawk conservancy trust, Welsh mountain zoo, Twycross zoo, Dudley zoo, Birmingham nature centre, West midland safari park, All things wild, Rodbaston animal zone & Wild zoological park I would like to know what are the better collections in Europe for bird species they don't have to be just a bird collection they can be a non specialist collection? Any information would be great as I am currently trying to put 4 2 week holidays together just to visit collections in Europe.
zootierliste is your friend here. But to get you started here are some suggestions: Pairi Daiza, Antwerp, Avifauna, Burgers Zoo, Cologne, Wuppertal, Walsrode, Marlow, Hagenbeck, Berlin zoo and tierpark, Leipzig, Dresden, Wilhelma, Prague, Plzen, Zlin-Lesna, Wroclaw, Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna, Innsbruck, Zurich, Villars-les-dombes, Doue-la-fontaine, Beauval, Paris.
Vogelpark Niendorf is doable using Hamburg as a base (from which you can also reach Walsrode) and still has a fair few oddities.
Vorobji ornitopark is approximately 2 hours or less away from Moscow (by car) so you could do Moscow zoo and ornitopark
I once did a list of some notable bird collections in Europe, sorting them by taxa held. It is very hastily made and it has many issues (I forgot some collections, I went through ztl numbers so multiple subspecies and non-subspecific animals count as double, some collection ztl holdings are outdated and some species are off-show at said zoos) and it doesn't take into account rarity of taxa but I hope it can help in any way: Birds in Europe
I will be visiting Dresden, Berlin & Cologne I intend to do this early 2020 looking into hotels at the moment as I have already got the train worked out. Dresden first for 4 nights then Berlin for 5 nights and finally Cologne 3 nights. The train journey will take a few hours to say the least but I love travelling by rail as you can see so much landscape. I was wondering if someone can help which is the correct listing for Cologne zoo on ZTL please?
That is Koln (Zoologischer Garten). Be aware that the majority of the Fruit doves, as well as the Birds of Paradise are behind the scenes. That still leaves an impressive bird collection on show, including what is likely the best Anseriform collection on the European mainland.
Many thanks for the info. I was wondering are there any small collections in Cologne, Berlin & Dresden please?
Nothing noteworthy in those cities itself, but they form an excellent base for seeing more zoos. Both Leipzig (Pangolins and much more) and Cottbus can be easily done as a day trip from Dresden. Leipzig is very much an all-day allround good zoo, with some excellent birds. Cottbus is a smaller collection, but is particularly noteworthy for its superb waterfowl and wading bird collection. Cottbus was the first European zoo to breed Lesser adjudant and Saddle-billed stork. The newest development is a large walkthrough aviary for Flamingo and other wading birds. Even Prague is doable as a day trip from Dresden, as it is only 2.5 hours by train. From Berlin, the easiest day trip would be Magdeburg (or alternatively Leipzig). But there is plenty in the city, apart from 2 huge zoos, a good natural history museum + plenty of other sights. From Cologne both Wuppertal and Frankfurt are easily reached by train, when it comes to good bird collections. Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen and Krefeld are also easily reached, but have less birds (though the bird house in Krefeld is outstanding). Somewhat further afield (1:40 hour by train + 15 minute bus ride) is Burgers' Zoo, which is also possible as a day trip.
I couldn't agree more - I remember being overwhelmed by the extent of the collection with regard to this order and was able to observe and photograph species I'd never seen before.
From my experience Burgers' Zoo and Avifauna are pretty good with birds. Though for Burgers' Zoo you'd need to be willing to spend some time in their halls to find some birds as they have most of their birds in free-flying halls apart from some cranes, flamingos, pelicans, pheasants, macaws and hornbills.
Hotels booked trains sorted can't wait for this trip now will update closer to the time March 2020 can't come quick enough. Will update with photographs of species and exhibits from my trip.
Is this your first zoo trip abroad (if so you're in for some fun) and will it take place before or after your US Zootierliste project is completed?
The US project should be on line early 2020 they still have quite a lot to do as it as turned out to be a big project they didn't realise that they had so many collections in the US My Germany trip will be taking place March 2020 really looking forward to it with so many new species for me to see don't know why I didn't do this years ago.
Who is "they"? And how could "they" have not had any idea of the number of zoos in the USA before starting?
They are a small group just uploading all the data collected in to a programme (which I have no idea how to do) that will then be put on a web site for all to see and will be updated once a month there after It was the small collections that caught us all out I will give the full number of collections when everything is final There were also many collections that had closed to which added months to the completion of the data.
