@Bib Fortuna: ein bissl mehr Humor bittschön; oa Grantscherm als Dauer-BK*_in reicht schon . If you think wikipedia can't surprise anymore, try the various piercing entries @Chli...
Just when I was worried this thread would remain empty until (and probably throughout) July... Not that I'm complaining.
I did not know one can visit ACTP. Did you tell them you want to see Spix's Macaws, rather than more dude-like bird kitchen and so on?
A small update on my trip. Within a few weeks I'll be in Berlin. I've made a few changes in the planning. The most unfortunate one was that I dropped both Magdeburg and the ACTP. I contacted the ACTP, but as (among others) the spix' macaws have started this year's breeding season very late, they will still in the middle of it when I go to Berlin. Therefore the facility won't give tours for the months to come. A decision I respected and understood even though it meant I wouldn't be able to visit their amazing collection. I dropped Magdeburg for a different reason. Because we travel to Berlin by car, the journey will be quite long and I thought squeezing in a zoo like Magdeburg might be a little to much. Which is very unfortunate, as Magdeburg is rather high on my "must-see" list, partly because of it's attitude towards species diversity in zoological collections. Therefore I decided to replace Magdeburg with a smaller collection (probably Nordhorn or something of similar size). Suggestions for a nice small collection to visit on our way to Berlin are welcome. The rest of the schedule will stay mostly the same. I might add a few thoughts about the day at Burgers' (the warming up for Berlin ) in this thread for the sake of comprehension, but nothing spectacular. My review will most likely be not as in-depth as TLD's review, but I hope you will still enjoy it.
Worth bearing in mind that Magdeburg is only a short train journey from Berlin, so you need not drop it on the basis of transport.......
If you are considering Nordhorn, then Rheine must be another option as well as it's close to Nordhorn but just a little more down the road to Berlin...
Even though Rheine is a very fine zoo of high quality, I won't include it on this trip. The reason is that I did visit Rheine on my previous trip to Walsrode, and I would like to include one more "new" zoo this time. It was (despite the small size) actually one of the best zoos I've visited, I might even rank it higher than some of the better known zoos like Duisburg (if it weren't for that river dolphin, tree kangaroos and wolverines!) and I certainly enjoyed it more than ZOOM Gelsenkirchen. I would recommend it to any Zoochatter on a Dutch/German zoo trip.
I'm back from my visit to Berlin and needless to say I enjoyed both the zoos and the city itself. The schedule ended up like this: Warming-up: Burgers' Zoo Day 1: Tierpark Nordhorn Day 2: Zoo Berlin Day 3: Tierpark Berlin Day 4: Tierpark Berlin Day 5: Zoo Magdeburg I enjoyed all zoos, but unsurprisingly the 2 Berlin giants were absolutely fantastic. The Welt der Vögel, Aquarium, Nocturnal House and Ibex/takin rocks in the Zoo, and the gigantic vulture aviary, mountain area, Crocodile house and huge camel paddocks at the Tierpark were absolute highlights of my visit. I saw great animals like the trumpet manucode (which too my surprise hadn't passed away yet), andean flamingo, gaur, vampire bats, golden takin, gharials, ratfish, flying frogs, great bustard, kiwi, spur-winged goose and a whole lot more. With the exception of the Marco-polo sheep and echidnas at the Tierpark (the latter was off-show during my visit) and the giant pandas* at the Zoo we didn't miss any major taxon the zoos had to offer. We were also able to find many species that are either shy or difficult to spot (like nocturnal species in normal day-light exhibits) like the palm civet, palawan-leopard cat, common genet, lowland paca and the greater yellow-naped woodpecker. I will discuss all zoos in greater or lesser detail in the weeks to come. Any discussion are certainly welcome and I will of course give my personal opinion on the major exhibits we saw on our journey. * I had of course seen giant pandas a week or two in advance of my trip in Rhenen, and therefore I didn't feel the need to wait in line to see the pandas lay in their indoor exhibits. I did check out the outside enclosures though, but the pandas weren't there.
Small update: for two weeks I wasn't able to use a computer (so I also couldn't reach the majority of my photos and notes), which resulted in a delay for my reviews. But expect updates soon, possibly tomorrow already.
Warming-up with screeming pihas - if one considers visiting zoos a hobby or even a sport, one needs a warming-up but before a major tournament - The first day of my trip was a warming-up at Burgers’ Zoo. Honestly this day wasn’t really a zoo day, but more or less a day out with friends, and as such we spend less time to seriously look at the collection. For me, this wasn’t a problem as I, just like the others, have been to Burgers’ numerous times in the past year(s). We were disappointed to find out that the Mangrove wouldn’t be open to the public until the day after we were there. But we enjoyed the various great exhibits that Burgers’ has to offer nonetheless. The weather was very Dutch (= rainy) so we spend most of the time in the Desert, Ocean and Bush halls. We were unfortunately unable to spot any of the new birds that recently arrived, but we still managed to spot a fair number of species, including the Chaco chachalaca, screeming piha, african darter, white-eared catbird and rose-bellied bunting. The sheer size of the hall, combined with the superb rainforest vegetation and a both varied and interesting collection of birds makes this one of the best animal exhibits I’ve seen. There was no shortage of nice bird species, as the Pheasantry too boasts a great collection, though it is only a remnant of what it once was. The birds were a lot more scarce in the Desert but a lot of mammal rarities were visible and active, including the various rodents and ringtails. Naturally, we also enjoyed the various outdoor exhibits on the dry parts of the day. A particularly active group of three Malayan sun bears and a litter of young jackals were among the highlights. At about five pm, we were surprised by the fact that the Mangrove was indeed open to the public! Although still quite bare and with a limited assortment of animals, the hall already proved a great addition. Seeing the manatees enjoying themselves a large and deep new enclosure was fantastic. The butterflies, horseshoe crabs and four-eyed fish are great addition to Burgers’ zoo’s collection. I planned to add a more detailed review, but ShonenJake13 already wrote one. After I got home, I packed my last stuff for the Berlin trip and made sure all my animals were all right. Assured we really had everything we needed with us, we were finally ready for our Berlin journey. Next: Tierpark Nordhorn
I'm sorry for the delay, I wrote a review of Nordhorn but I didn't like it (it was more or less just listing exhibits), so I rewrote it. This part is about the road towards Nordhorn and the first part of Tierpark Nordhorn. I hope it isn't boring to read. On our way to Berlin! After a quick breakfast we packed our stuff and set off towards Nordhorn. We were a bit later than planned, but in good mood nonetheless. The weather was fine and were greeted by flocks of starlings and geese. Hares lay in the fields along the road and buzzards soared far above the highway. A spotted woodpecker flew over opon crossing the German border. After a two hour journey, we arrived at the large parking of Tierpark Nordhorn. Rare buffalos in Nordhorn Nordhorn has a small but fine entrace building, comprising a ticket booth, a giftshop and a very clear indoor pond containing a few koi carps: the first zoo animals of the trip. When we entered the zoo, we found ourselfs in a lush zoo filled with local animals and plants. Nordhorn, like many smaller German zoos, has a special focus on native wildlife. All around the zoo, there were facilities to enhance the local populations of birds, insects (notably bees) and amphibians, a feature that contributed greatly to the overall quality of the zoo. An occupied nest with swifts (including a 'telescope' pointed towards it) struck me as a particularly nice example of this. In contrast, the first enclosures held primarily American species, as the first enclosures contained pond sliders (signed but not seen) and black-tailed prairy dogs. Although both were of high quality, the enclosure housing white-nosed coati was even better, as it not only provided a climbing structure, but also a lot of live trees for the animals to climb. The coati's (among them a young animal less than one year old) naturally made great use of this. Opposite to the coati enclosure is a sandy paddock housing the animal featured on the zoo's logo: forest buffalo. This taxon is scarce in European collections (it was a lifetick for me), and Nordhorn is really pround of its herd. The buffalo share their enclosure with almost 20 collared peccaries. The peccaries however, were mostly found in the areas where the buffalo couldn't reach them. Nonetheless, there seems to be no problem with this combination, as the peccaries did frequently cross the "buffalo area" without any visible aggression from or towards the buffalo. The next enclosure features alpaca and Patagonian mara in a walk-through exhibit. Rheas are supposed to be found here as well (they are featured on the map), but we didn't see any, and they were not signed. The signs in general were of high quality and education is found everywhere around this small zoo. There is also a little nature area where we saw coots and grebes, but kingfishers should be common too. A huge pasture inhabited by Bentheimer sheep and Niederungs cattle was also a hunting ground for the local swallows and martins. Smaller pastures attached to it contained Bentheimer pig and jacob sheep. More wild birds could be found at the zoo's historic farm, the "vechtehof". Most notable were the barn swallows, robins and white storks nesting here. The farm itself is a pleasure to visit and displays a wide range of historic and rare domestic breeds, like the Dutch landrace goats, poitou donkeys, Gelderse slenk (Dutch pigeon race), kraienkopp, Bentheimer piglets, Deutschen Riesenschecken (German rabbit race) and Twente geese, all in fine or at least decent enclosures. A couple of more common domestics were were also present: dwarf rabbits and domestic mice, the latter was exhibited in a funny little "Maushaus". Combined with the animals kept on the pastures, this collection represents a pleasing and comprehensive array of historic (mostly local) breeds.* Tierpark Nordhorn is divided in two parts (as long as the planned expansion is not finished yet), the first part comprising several buildings, the "American area", the "Vechtehof" and the nature area with the large pastures, while the second part comprises the remainig exhibits, a second restaurant and a playground. The two parts are connected by a decent walk-through exhibit containing several red-necked wallaby. The second part starts with arguably one of the best mongoose exhibits I've ever seen. It's large with varied terrain, places to dig, tall rocks and live vegetation. Attached was a spacious indoor exhibit. The inhabitants are meerkats and yellow mongooses (it would definately have been a shame if only meerkats were displayed), both in a large group. In the middle of the second part is a large playground, surrounded by enclosures on 3 sides and a restaurant on the 4th side. Some enclosures were more or less attached to the playground. The first one is a petting enclosure with Ouessant sheep and African pygmy goats. Furthermore, there's a decent enclosure with Indian crested porcupines and an aviary with 3 two-toed sloths (so that makes 6 toes right? ). It was great to see the sloths outside and not in a nocturnal house for a change. Although it seems strange to house such secretive animals next to the playground, the animals appeared to be fine (maybe because the children skip these exhibits and run towards the playground right away). Next: Nordhorn part 2 * As I can't find the proper English names for some races, I just noted the German or Dutch name (according to the country of origin).
Seals, waders and... ibex?! As written in the first part of Nordhorn, the second area comprises a centre with two loops around it. The first (smaller) loop starts with an enclosure filled with nestboxes like one would find in owl enclosures. But the animals sitting within weren't owls, but European wildcats. The next exhibit features two enclosures for Persian leopards. The enclosures are quite small but I was delighted to see this taxon nonetheless. We finally did find owls though, as the next enclosure is a walk-through exhibit for great grey owls. It was closed due to recent breeding succes, which is great news as the population of great greys crashed last winter. One would wonder though if a walk-through exhibit for great grey owls is a good idea even outside the breeding season... The next stop is a chimpanzee enclosure. It is small and out-dated, but not too bad for the trio of older chimps that live within it. It is though, the worst enclosure we saw in the entire zoo. Opposite to the chimpansee indoor enclosure, there are two walk-through aviaries of high quality. The first houses the standard set of Australian birds (zebra finch, budgerigar, cockatiel and crested dove), the second houses a number of native waders. As I'm really fond of waders, I always enjoy seeing and photographing them from close up in a zoo setting, as many species are quite shy in the wild. The species housed are pied avocets, black-winged stilts, common redshanks and a curlew. When I could finally pull myself away from all these waders, we walked past a pond containing even more native birds: tufted ducks, ferruginous ducks, greylag geese and common shelduck. Next to the ducks, we found a small house filled with nice vivariums. They mostly house a few common (pet) species, like corns snakes, axolotls and Oriental fire-bellied toads. We were pleasantly surprised when we discovered a few native herps: common toad and most notably, fire salamander. I like to see a few herps in zoos like this (which houses mostly mammals and birds), as it adds a little variety. I'm even happier when a species like the fire salamander pops up. The last enclosure in the first loop is an exhibit for harbour seals, which seems decent but not really spectacular. The largest enclosure in the second loop is an fine African savannah exhibit, housing plains zebra, marabu stork, helmed guineafowl and ostrich. Most of the loop is around this exhibit, which is why we saw a couple of exhibits before we had a good view of the savannah. A very lush enclosure for Eurasian wolves is located next to the savannah, on a seperate path that isn't included in the loop. The enclosure might be a little too lush, as it turned out the be impossible to find wolves in their densely vegetated exhibit. A nice little surprise was a small building with two large and well-designed terrariums that held Chinese voles and Eurasian harvest mouse. Just next to the building, there are two aviaries with Eurasian eagle owls and common raven. Their enclosures were a bit small, but nothing worse or better than ususal. The last of the major exhibits is one of the best enclosures in the zoo. This enclosure was actually one of the reasons the choose this zoo. It is a large aviary not just housing griffon vultures and waldrapp ibis, but also Siberian ibex and European pond turtles. It has lots of real rock in it, which looks far more impressive than the near-ubiquitous mock-rock. The viewing huts are nicely themed and a small bee house (where the zoo’s honey bees are kept) is located in between the viewing points. We were definitely impressed by this enclosure. Next to it, there is also a small paddock for a herd of racka sheep. The last enclosure of the second loop is an aviary containing squirrel monkeys and Central American agouti. The aviary provides both climbing opportunities for the monkeys as well as hiding places for the agoutis. After seeing the monkeys, we agreed that we had seen the zoo to our content. Knowing we had a long journey ahead, and not wanting to arrive too late on our destination, we decided to walk to the exit. We were met with a little surprise, as we found out that the entrance hall of the Zooschule was open, which contained a few terrariums. These looked very good, and housed a few reptiles and inverts, like ball pythons, bearded dragons and giant prickly stick insects. We also spent a few more minutes at the buffalo enclosure before finally leaving Tierpark Nordhorn. Next stop: Berlin!
On our way to Berlin (again) The drive from Nordhorn to Berlin took a bit longer than expected thanks to the various traffic jams. A pair of red kites soared above the Autobahn and a kestrel was hunting nearby. We also took some interest in former border between East- and West-Germany at Helmstedt. This place was known as "Checkpoint Alpha", with Checkpoint Bravo on the border with West-Berlin. The famous Checkpoint Charlie being the third within Berlin. When we entered Berlin we were immediately struck by the sudden traffic chaos. Fortunately our hotel had it's own parking so we didn't have to worry about finding one (which would have been a nightmare). The Hotel, although looking quite outdated from the outside, was really nice inside with fine bedrooms. After freshing up, we quickly decided to find a place to eat. After a while, we settled for a cozy little Italian restaurant were we ate. After our dinner we decided to explore Berlin on our own. It's definately chaotic but we were still impressed by the city. Nonetheless we were sure we would have great time in Berlin. Nocturnal predators: Zoo Berlin part 1 For the record: I'm not going to mention every single (sub)species we saw. So you might miss quite a few taxa here and there. The first morning in Berlin, while enjoying breakfast, we were discussing the plans for the first day in one of the Berlin zoos: Zoo Berlin itself. We choose to go to Zoo Berlin first, as it was friday and we were afraid it would easily get crowded on weekends. Because of the chaotic traffic of Berlin (as we had discovered the day prior), we decided to walk to the zoo. The walk only took about 30 minutes and we were able to see some of the more touristic locations of Berlin, like the (apparently) famous Kurfürstendamm and the Gedächtniskirche. A couple of minutes before the zoo opened we arrived at the Elefantentor. Just after nine o’clock we were in the Zoo. Next to the entrance is a nice paddock for blackbuck and a pair of japanse cranes. Nothing special, but certainly big enough. If only those cranes weren't wing-clipped or pioned. The zoo itself looks simply amazing, with beautiful greenery everywhere. The plan was to first head towards the carnivore house with it's noctural house basement. The cages around the carnivore house looked very outdated (with a few exceptions, like the one for tayras which sadly had few climbing opportunities), but not too bad for most of the inhabitants. The notable exceptions being the big cats like the jaguars of course. The lions on the other hand have a more lush and natural looking outside enclosure (with real rocks!) which looks quite good. The third species of big cat was only visible in it's inside enclosure, so I don't know how many cages they occupy. The rest of the cages hold smaller species. Most animals were (still) in their indoor enclosure when we visited, so we only saw a very few of them outside (notably the aformented tayra and the great grey owls). The house itself was quite airy from the inside, in a way I didn't expect. Most enclosures were arranged in rows like terrariums in an old-fasioned reptile house, with the exception being an enclosure for dwarf mongooses. I think most were at least adequate, often because the animals occupied two or more enclosures. The most memorable species certainly were the euplerids: ring-tailed vontsira (3 seen) and narrow-striped mongoose (2 seen). The small cats were represented with several life ticks for me, like the sand cat and the jaguarundi. Meerkats, ocelots and the third species of big cat, persian leopards, were also present, so was a giant anteater (which was quite an unexpected find in a carnivore house). The big cat cages were amazing to see. Although I understand they don't hold up to today's standards of big cat husbandry, I was certainly impressed. But the real treasure in this building is the basement. It has the best and most comprehensive collection of noctural animals I've seen in a zoo. The first enclosure houses a combination of aardvark, springhare and senegal bushbaby, all of which were reasonably active. All enclosures seemed decent or good, and we saw all inhabitants except the lesser hedgehog tenrecs. Highlights include various species of bats (most notably the common vampire bat), slow loris, kinkajou and cururo. We deliberately choose to visit the nocturnal house early, as in my experience they easily get crowded and visiting them alone is just wonderful. The Berlin nocturnal house is no exception. When we left the carnivore house, we went to the Berlin Aquarium. Since the Aquarium can be considered a separate attraction and it worthy of it's own chapter, I'll write more about it later. Outside the Aquarium, we found two large ponds, the Grottenteich and the Neptunteich. Both were filled with waterfowl. Most waterfowl are part of the collection, but I suspect several of them to be wild animals attracted to the ponds (the mallard ducks and coots for example). The more memorable species were cape shoveler, south-african shelduck, common shelduck, Chiloé wigeon, common eider and rosy-billed pochard, but others were present too. This part of the zoo is actually one of the more quiet areas were some wild birds can be seen too. Branches of the various weeping willows hang above the water, providing not only cover for the waterfowl but also beautiful scenery for visitors. Walking towards the Lichtensteinbrücke (and thus a small expansion area), we encountered paddocks for a variety of hoofstock. The first one looks really nice and holds a herd of sable antilope. The others were fairly decent enclosures, they are not gigantic but provide a decent amount of space for the inhabitants. Bongo, scimitar-horned oryx, okapi and natal red duiker are displayed. Unfortunately the paddock for two black rhinoceros (and a third one in a separate area) was quite small and barren. The giant anteaters are housed here as well, but this time in a nice, lush enclosure which looked a lot better than their enclosure in the carnivore house.
Just in case anyone is still reading this, I uploaded a couple of pictures I took in Nordhorn: Entrance Mongoose enclosure Wader aviary Chimpanzee enclosure The "Vechtehof" And a few more. I'm busy writing part 2 of Zoo Berlin, but work and university take up a lot of time, so it takes a little longer than expected.
Over the bridge and back After viewing the anteaters, we crossed the Lichtensteinbrücke. It feels strange to walk over a bridge when visiting the zoo, if on the other side of it people are just cycling and going through the city. On the other side of the bride there a nice little expansion area which holds mostly larger animals. The first enclosure is a nice-looking grassy paddock that houses a couple of south-american animals. Guanacos, rheas, capibaras, southern screamers and coscoroba swans are housed together. Quite a surprise was the lack of a tapir species, considering the zoo has two of those, and anteater, as they are also kept in two places in the zoo. The other large grassy paddocks has the African equivalents of some of the South-American species, but less birds and more hoofstock. South-African ostriches are kept together with greater kudu, blesbok and springbok. The latter was a particular pleasure to see again after quite a while. A few smaller enclosures held red giant kangaroo, parma wallaby, przewalski’s wild horse and barasingha, although we could only see the latter taxon in their separation area. This small area has quite a different feel than the rest of the zoo, as it lacks both unusual animals and historic architecture. Nevertheless I quite liked it, and all the animals are housed well. We went back to the oryx enclosure and found out that there were a few more ungulates here. Their stables are marvellous, the one housing grévy’s zebra, as well as gemsbok (and the scimitar-horned oryx) had a sort of white tower rising above the paddocks. A huge white building with decorated roofs and balconies holds plains zebra and common eland. A sign that immediately caught my attention showed the extant and recently extinct species of equines in Africa. More signs just like this one are dotted all over the zoo. This truck me as particularly relevant, as both the Berlin collection showcase biodiversity like no other zoo I ever visited. A set of quite simple, rocky pools contained a few pinnipeds (Common seals, Californian sea lions and two species of fur seals), as well as asian short-clawed otters. According to ZTL, two species of fur seal should be present: one cape fur seal and two northern fur seals. I saw 2 individual animals of which one was very dark, and one was more light brown. I think I may have seen both species, but I’m not entirely sure, as both were swimming for a few minutes before disappearing into their indoor quarters. The enclosures themselves are nothing out the ordinary, but the one for otters is quite large and nicely done. One of the highlights of Zoo Berlin can be found just next to the pinniped enclosures: Pinguinwelt (world of penguins). Although it sounds more spectacular than it is in reality, it is a nice penguin enclosure and it even snows inside. It is not big but the species displayed make up for it. King penguins and southern rockhopper penguins are housed within the building, while the African penguins have their own outside enclosure. Andean condors can be seen opposite to Pinguinwelt, displayed in the largest condor aviary I’ve ever seen. Although soaring is out the question, flying for these huge birds is certainly possible in this aviary. Next to the condors there a walk-through aviary housing mostly wetland birds. Among others, we saw scarlet ibis, black-faced ibis, puna ibis, black stork, bare-faced currasow and incredibly tame magpie geese. The aviary was nicely planted, and it was the second of multiple exhibits in Zoo Berlin that are amazing (the first was the condor exhibit), but hardly ever get mentioned. Painted dogs are kept in a large and lush enclosure next to the wetland aviary. I generally find painted dogs to be really active or sleeping, with hardly anything in between, and the ones in Berlin were running around like usual. A small restaurant, the Waldschänke, is located between the penguin enclosure, the painted dogs and a small but nice exhibit for ring-tailed coati. There was a young coati on display, a sight that might become extremely rare in Europe, as they are considered invasive and therefore it is illegal to breed them now (there might still be couple of pregnant animals here and there). The restaurant itself offers good, but quite expensive food. Nonetheless we settled there for lunch. I can really recommend eating here (unless you are Dutch I suppose). Opposite to the restaurant, there are a few bovine paddocks, but more on those later. After lunch, we continued. We were just in time to see the sloth bears active, before they retreated to their indoor enclosure after feeding. The arctic wolves remained active. I’ve always been fond of wolves, and seeing a pack active in a nice exhibit is always great. After seeing some smallish bird cages (housing bald eagle, for example), we were about the enter one of the best parts of Zoo Berlin: the bird area. Comprising the huge birdhouse Welt der Vögel, as well as the Fasanerie and several individual bird exhibits, this area boosts an impressive array of bird species. Few zoos can even try to compete with this amazing bird collection. But more on that in the next part. I wanted to write more but university is really taking up almost all of my time. Next time I will cover the bird area.
I was in Berlin zoo a few weeks ago and like you was disappointed not to see northern fur seal, but there was no signage for them and the only occupant of that pool was a single Cape fur seal. The walk through water bird aviary was closed on my visit.
Well, I do like to explore a zoo on my own, so in large zoos like Berlin I tend to walk unlogical routes. Finally another part of the review. Berlin zoo has 2 or 3 parts to go I guess, and then I can finally start with the Tierpark... Birds, birds and more birds The bird section of Zoo Berlin in one of the most marvellous I’ve ever seen, surpassed only by Weltvogelpark Walsrode itself. Several zoo enthusiasts I know were worried that the renovation of the birds house would be detrimental to the general collection of birds in Berlin. Although I understand the number of taxa has actually dropped, there was certainly no shortage of unique and rare taxa, most of them kept in very high quality enclosures and aviaries. The Fasanerie is already splendid. The aviaries are very good and well-planted, and a much-more-than-good collection of birds is kept. I could only wish for other zoos to have a bird collection like this. The interior of the house has a great “feel” to it, and it has beautiful wall decorations. Most of the aviaries contained smallish to medium-sized birds, but the first one already displayed a kagu. One species that I found particularly delightful to see was the white-bellied korhaan. It was such a pleasure to see this species, that I almost forgot the long-toed lapwings in the same exhibit! Javan mouse deer are the only mammals I saw in the Fasanerie, and they provide a little more diversity in displayed taxa. Cuckoos, an order of birds very rare in zoos, is represented with two species, the channel-billed cuckoo and the guira cuckoo, the latter species was a lifer for me (the ones at Rotterdam escaped just before my visit). We walked past little bitterns, breeding javan pond herons and various rollers (purple rollers most notably), a brown-hooded kingfisher, turacos and fruit doves while searching for one particular species I was hoping but not really expecting to see. I feared the trumpet manucode had already passed away. Until I say an aviary with a currasow in it. I wasn’t certain of the species so I looked at the signs, and the manucode was signed! I looked into the exhibit again and hardly a second later, the bird came out and landed on a branch. It was spectacular. Despite the fact that it is indeed clearly an older bird, I was finally able to see a species I’ve wanted to see for a long time, while fearing it would before I had the chance. A couple of aviaries opposite to the Fasanerie hold the two species of flamingo I had yet to see (Andean flamingo and James flamingo). Both species are incredibly rare in European collection and thus I was very delighted to get good looks of both taxa (even though I failed to make satisfying photographs). I also saw an aviary holding a group of waldrapp ibis. But next to the flamingos there’s are real treasure I’ve read very little if anything about (probably only in TLD’s the extensive review). It is a wader aviary (which already makes it worth seeing), and it is filled with avocets, scaups, curlews, Javan and Indian pond herons, inca terns and most notably, two ruddy turnstones, the first ones I ever saw in a captive collection. As said in the Nordhorn review, I’m truly fond of waders and other Charadriiformes, so this aviary was clearly a fantastic part of the bird section. The bird house itself is almost too much to cover. It is currently divided in a couple of loops, each one covering another continent. Each loop has aviaries around with, almost all of which have access to an outdoor part. The inside is remarkable. It has too many education tools to mention them all. One I particularly liked was a screen that displayed the way various bird species flew as they migrated. There were also size comparisons that mentioned extinct species like moas. All aviaries were of high quality and so were the walk-through areas. Although it might have to do something with the time of day we visited, we saw an unexpected low number of birds in the walk-through parts. The decorations and of course the plans were very nice though. This house has recently been renovated and it has become an example that a taxonomic display can be great, both in terms of visitor experience and animal welfare. There are too many amazing species to name them all, but one that absolutely needs mentioning is the kiwi, which is kept in a small nocturnal part within the main house. It was readily visible and active during my visit. I was particularly delighted to see this species, as I failed to see them in Walsrode. Furthermore, the greater yellownape and oriental pied hornbill stood out as species I was really hoping to see, and I actually managed to do so (luck seems to have been on my side in Berlin). The enormous diversity of song birds (multiple astrild finches, tanagers, glossy starlings and weavers for example) was amazing, just like the pigeons, of which the orange-fronted fruit dove, orange-bellied fruit dove, black-naped fruit dove, namaqua dove and crested quail dove were specifically memorable. Zoos really should exhibit more pigeon species. Most of the birds were relatively small, but among the bigger ones are the parrots (up to the size of hyacinth macaws), hornbills, blue-winged kookaburra, tawny frogmouth, Bernier’s teal and white-winged ducks (the latter two being particular favourites of mine). This part of the park has one true downside, and that is that you see so many great species in such a short time, that I you don’t take notes (which I generally don’t) you simply cannot remember everything you see! Related to it, is that you can’t fully appreciate the [fill in amazing bird species] when you’ve literally seen almost a hundred species just as great before. And sometimes (as you simply get a species overload) you almost skip a species of fruit dove, finch of starling, just take a quick look at it, only to find out later that it is a true rarity and you’ve only made two pictures, both of which are blurry! This species overload may also be due to the relative small area of the entire bird part, as well as it being part of a zoo that also has great collection of other species, as I didn’t feel this way in Walsrode. In conclusion, the bird area of Zoo Berlin comprises a considerable area of the zoo, and it’s lay out makes it an attractive part of the zoo. I know that many non-bird enthusiast won’t really appreciate it beyond the “pretty birds in nice aviaries”. It is still a way to present birds (with a specific focus on smaller species) in a great setting and with visitor enjoyment in mind, without losing the fantastic collection and at the same time, offer multiple opportunities for visitors to learn and discover beyond the “pretty birds”. Oh, there was also a polar bear exhibit next to it but I didn’t really bother to look at it because I was too busy watching birds.
