Here we go another year and as I have said before I want to try and see as many Eagles & Vultures as I can. Have you got any aims for this year and how would you achieve tem, my problem as stated before is I have to use public transport and over the last couple of weeks have been planning my trips so here we go with a list of places I will visit this year and how Dudley Zoo – Bus Birmingham nature centre – Bus Hagley Falconry Centre – Bus London Zoo – Train & walk Blackpool zoo – Coach and Taxi Bristol Zoo – Train & bus Cotswold Falconry Centre – Train & walk Birdland Park & Garden – Train & bus Slimbridge WWT – Coach Chester Zoo – Train & bus Cotswold Wildlife Park – With Family West Midlands Safari Park – With Family Twycross Zoo – Coach Hawk Conservancy Trust – Train, Bus & walk Liberty’s Raptor & Reptile Centre – With friends Warwick Castle Falconry – Coach Centre for Birds Of Prey – Coach & walk The Shorelands – With Friends Plus 4 Private collections (2 in Norfolk, 2 in the Midlands) My aim is to clock up at least 25 species of vulture and 35 species of eagle this year Will add other locations when I have more information from the collections as to whether they still hold the species they say on Zootierliste or not. All the ones visiting by Train or bus will be visited on a Saturday as it’s much cheaper to go by public transport on Saturdays (example Cradley Heath – London Marlebourne mon-fri return £128.00 sat £30.00) Add to this my days out with the Stourbridge RSPB group and other visits birding I hope to have a great time with my beloved bird species. Have a great year everyone and I hope you see what you have gone to see on your visits. So there are my plans for 2015 what will you be doing Have a great year everyone
If you wanted to take the Eurostar and then regional trains to France, you could rack up multiple species at Rocher des Aigles raptor center near Rocamadour. However, the one and only review on TripAdvisor gives a very negative impression. Disgraceful exploitation of raptors - AVOID! - Review of Rocher des Aigles, Rocamadour, France - TripAdvisor
Unfortunately I have heard many bad reports of this collection on other birding forums and chat sites and I have no or never will have any intensions of visiting this collection.
The place may or may not be poor, but far from there being only one review on Trip Advisor, there are currently 204, of which 115 rank the place as excellent (not that I would necessarily trust the Trip Advisor verdict in a zoo....).
That is good to know. I would like to visit Rocamadour one day for architectural photography and prior to this I would have gone to the raptor place since it is close. Now that I know birding forums give it a bad report I will stay away even if I do make it to the village.
assuming this is true (the embolded bit) I wouldn't put any emphasis on it. Birding forums are not at all a good judge of captive facilities. The majority of members on Birdforum, for example, are actively anti-captivity for birds.
I have noticed that on Bird forum as I did post a picture once of a captive Golden eagle and the place went mad and the abuse I received through the pms was a little over the top. Must admit I do agree most bird forums do dislike any bird collection no matter who they are but I still read reports just to give me an idea about a visit if the collection is along distance away.
I don't know about public transport to The Raptor Foundation, near St Ives (Huntingdon), but it is worth a visit.
That would be interesting to find out and maybe if they have could they put a reply on here so we can make our minds up.
For those interested here is a link to the Raptor Foundation in St Ives by public transport - http://www.zoochat.com/38/uk-collections-public-transport-guide-348503/index6.html Comment #89 Hope it helps