Well, to be precise we knew (and had unsuccessfully attempted to find out who to contact to get offshow access) but at the time the species was due to move back onshow, so we didn't chase the matter up after our initial lack of success in the hope they would be on-display again at the time of our visit. Unfortunately these plans were cancelled at some point in the intervening time. As for Schoenebeck, we probably would have chased the matter up were it not for the fact we were somewhat under the impression the Piebald Shrews (the main offshow highlight, we now know) had died when they ceased to be on-display rather than merely moving offshow. We only learned they were alive but offshow a few weeks later.
Day 2: Questioning the reality in Leipzig @TeaLovingDave hidden gems score: Ansell's Mole-rat - not seen Eastern Common Chimpanzee - seen Sierra Leone green pigeon - this was some sort of a joke right Dave? You couldn't mean this seriously Grizzled giant squirrel - not seen Siberian musk deer - seen Vietnamese small flying fox - seen Quote of the day (repeated many many times throughout the day): "Are you f*****g kidding me?" Magdeburg on day 1 set the bar at a reasonable level and we knew Leipzig will be even better but we didn't how much and it's safe to say that what happened was much more than we could ever imagine. Being accommodated 15 minutes by foot from the zoo allowed us to sleep a little longer and regain as much energy as possible...at least that was the plan. What really happened was that I woke up at 5 AM and couldn't sleep since so...yeah... Anyways, we got to the zoo just as the gate opened, and being the only ones without little children there, we used our speed advantage to be the first people to come through turnstiles that day Plan for the start of the day was set many days before - don't stop anywhere and rush straight to Gondwanaland so our cameras won't get too cold. On the way, we really didn't miss out on much, Howler monkeys and marmosets, weren't allowed outside because of frozen water moat, it was too cold for macaws, mynas and other birds from the Bird house to be outside, apart from Swinhoe's pheasant and Black-faced ibis and too soon for the Sloth bear (but we did see him later in the day) Then we finally arrived to the Gondwanaland. Just the mine you go through at the beginning is impressive enough with its aquariums with 3 lungfish species, Nocturnum with Kowaris, Quolls and Slow-loris (although we'd seen only Kowari). Then we entered the main hall of Gondwanaland...and we immediately stopped with our jaws dropped...You can hear about it, you can look at the photos, but once you see something like this with your own eyes, it's much more different. We put our jackets and backpacks into the locker room (great idea to have something like that, we really appreciated it) and we headed into the hall. After seeing Fulvous whistling ducks flying 20 meters above me in formation I knew that we see the pigeon Dave talked about only if he flies straight into my face...Gondwanaland itself is an all day thing if you are really on the hunt for the species but we rather enjoyed the surroundings so we missed out on so much of the small birds, but I didn't really mind as seeing six massive Arapaima, White-faced saki jumping in full-grown trees, Radjah shelduck bathing in the waterfall, Giant otters swimming in the pool that would be good enough to house Boto and many more sightings fills you with so much joy and happiness...We spent almost an hour and a half here (we saved some time by not going on the boat tour which was closed that day) to come back later in the day. Anyways, out from the warm Gondwanaland back into the cold Leipzing morning, to meet some Czech animal friends (either born here, or spending part of their life here), but we are still not sure if one of the Snow leopards we saw was the Pilsen born female or not. The Himalaya exhibit, even though it's not the biggest, is very well made. Next up was the Elephant exhibit with former Prague's male. Bulls were just coming outside from the house so we did saw him. We got momentarily angry while bypassing the fence blocking the path to Elephant house, which meant final confirmation that there will be no pangolins today I noticed on the plan of Elephant house that it looks like there is a separate entrance to the basement with pangolins, where you don't go through the Elephant floor so I was a bit sad that they didn't leave that one open but I can understand that it's probably better for the staff to close the whole pavilion rather than risk that someone while on the hunt for sensational photos of baby elephant won't respect some rope in front of the stairs...around the elephant exhibit through the exhibits for Siberian tiger (Pilsen born female) and Amur leopard, which were, same as the Snow leopard's exhibit, not the biggest, but very pretty, and around the Red-necked wallaby exhibit, we got to Pongoland. As @FunkyGibbon mentioned here, once you see a big group of chimps rather than the classic 4-5 animals, they became a completely different animal, that we learned in Magdeburg. Pongoland taught us, that there is one more level beyond that - babies. Baby chimps change the dynamics of the group in a way no amount of adults can. So we spent next hour here, having fun with the apes (but not the Gorillas, they are boring ), nice touch was the face-app camera which can you use to identify members of the main chimp group, although as we found out it could probably use some more calibrating so it won't identify male as a female...we did saw the Eastern chimpanzees, so the only thing in this house we missed out on were free-flying birds but at this point I seriously doubt their existence, or maybe they are there, nobody cares about that because why would you when you can look at the big amazing groups of your closest relatives, maybe they are living the lives of renegades, living off the scraps apes leave in the exhibits...even their signage is like...meh. The only thing I didn't like here exhibit-wise was the fact that Bonobos felt like Cinderellas of the house to me...All the groups have those big open exhibits and then there are the Bonobos hidden in sort of a dark spot like they've been fitted in last minute. The exhibit is still great though. From Pongoland we went around the Musk deer exhibit, with the deer resting not in the shelter but ON the shelter (probably wanted to have some higher ground over the cranes?), around the empty Okapi exhibit (surprise surprise) to the Giraffe house, where came probably the worst moment of the whole trip...I mean when it comes to animal smells, I can handle a lot but the nesting Lesser flamingo colony was way too much even for me, I understand that you can't disturb the birds during this period, so, I'm sending my deepest condolences to whoever will be cleaning it after the flamingoes will be finally allowed outside. As I mentioned at the beginning of my post, we, unfortunately, didn't see Ansell's mole-rats, but the expositions for Fat sand rat and Short-eared elephant shrew were very pretty. Jumping a bit now, as there is no need for me to write how much I was overwhelmed by almost every single exhibit and how every single animal had some enrichment things in the exhibit, even those I wouldn't expect to have something like Lownland Anoa, I will move to the old houses Bird house and Terrarium. In bird house, I was a bit surprised how tight some of the exhibits, or let's be honest terrariums, were (for example Blue honeycreeper and the second one was probably Brazilian tangar but I didn't mark it), but hey, I'm no expert. But the walkthrough hall was amazing, a little bit resembling the Sichuan house in Prague or Bird World in Dvur Kralove before they ruined it. Terrarium a couple nice species in very nice terrariums, featuring pond for Dwarf caiman with the biggest Red-eared slider I have ever seen. And I'm not kidding, there was Snapping turtle in the aquarium on the other side of the path and those two were almost the same size...I wonder what do they feed them... Then we went to see Koalas, where we noticed that that light there makes the glass disappear when you look from a certain angle, which sparked a discussion about the concept of walkthrough Koala exhibit. Afterwards, we headed for a second round around selected exhibits, leaving the South-American area at the very end of our visit. Here I felt like at home in Jihlava when I saw what probably will be/is inner exhibit for Coati or something like that because designing inner exhibit as a living room/kitchen/whatever...yeah I thought this is possible only here All in all, Leipzig was everything we wanted and more. Species-wise and exhibit design-wise amazing...Some Czech zoo people say, that we are spoiled by quality of our zoos, I wonder if we are spoiled, why term do you use to describe a German person
Day 3: Finally back home...Oh wait, we're in Dresden. @TeaLovingDave hidden gems score: Black-eared wheatear - nope Kordofan giraffe - well...it's kinda hard to miss this one Pin-tailed sandgrouse - seen Pygmy white-toothed shrew - nope Steller's jay - nope (also the whole offshow area looked like it's undergoing some minor reconstruction) Ortolan bunting - nope First of all, I deeply apologize for a long pause between my report, but I had some school stuff to sort. Anyways, back to my report: The time has come for us to say goodbye to our Leipzig apartment, pack our stuff head back home. But not before we visit Dresden Zoo as it is pretty much on the way. I think it's safe to say that Dresden was ideal as the last zoo of the trip as it resembled Czech zoos in many ways. First nice touch, right at the entrance were Zooplans in Czech language, that made our visit much easier for us. We headed directly into the Elephant house joined with Mandrills, Naked mole-rats and Elephant shrew. Mandrill exhibit was nicely and cleanly designed, even though I'll probably never be fan of substrate-less floors. Elephant paddock was a bit tight (as almost everything here) but still pretty good. The Lion exhibit looked pretty small to us, Caracal exhibit was alright. Then we headed to Terrarium house. Collection present is nice, but some reconstruction of the house itself is needed. Next up was Giraffe house, as I already said, it's really hard to miss Kordofan giraffes aquariums present here are very basic but nice, same as the terrarium with Gundis. After leaving the Giraffe house, we went around Dhole exhibit, with probably the laziest dhole group I ever saw, than various Caprine exhibits, all of them not very spacious but the design was alright. The species were: Northern Chinese goral, Himalayan tahr, Kuban tur and Shensi takin - this once again sparked discussion about their situation, and now I'm cursing myself for not asking Zoo Liberec's head zoologists about them, when I had the option last week while attending his lecture about management euthanasias. What we really liked was the Bird of Prey aviary, and right after that the aviaries for small birds, although the only species we saw were Pin-tailed sandgrouse and Little bittern. After taking a break in Orangutan house, while watching really active and communicative Orangutan baby and trying to work out the layout of the house, we got to the highlight of the day - Prof. Brandes Haus. With the modern trend of Zoogeographical exposition, it's sometimes nice to see that even the classical "animal-house" can still work if presented well. Ok, maybe it is a bit unusual to see Kikuyu guereza with bamboo painted on the walls of their exhibit, but other than that, all the exhibits there were nice and tidy. We even managed to see a non-sleeping Koala and it wasn't even feeding time. That was pretty much everything interesting enough to mention. All in all, Dresden was really the most "Czech-looking" zoo from our trip, as the title suggests. Some nice species, contrast between old and new exhibtis...everything like back home. From three zoos we visited during the trip, we agreed that Dresden was probably the "worst" one, but I guess our opinion was heavily influenced by the Leipzig visit the day before. Dresden, on the other hand, had the best atmosphere, due to weather. It was sunny, with snow still present in the zoo and that was amazing.
