Trip to Australia – June and July 2016

It's almost exactly dead centre. The front half is black, while the back half and tail are white. The white tail is pretty easy to see.

Easiest if they are side-by-side!



Hix

 

I can see the Chromis now. Cool.

 

Day 19 – Loads of Birding, and Loads of Zoos – 25th of June

The next day started with a sunrise bird walk where I saw the Rufous Fantails, Wompoo Pigeons, and Figbirds from the previous day but little else, followed by a very nice breakfast provided by Cassowary House with a good selection of tropical fruit that I enjoyed very much. Though the best thing about breakfast were the birds that joined us for it. Food was left out for the birds, and the first thing I saw there was my second highest priority species from Cassowary House – a Victoria’s Riflebird. Actually there were three riflebirds around, an adult male and female and a juvenile male that was starting to grow adult plumage. They were not shy at all, coming down to the feeder for a few seconds then back into the nearby trees sitting in nice view to watch. Though with the dark rainforest environment all of the pictures of the male that I took that morning came out blurry. As well as the riflebirds there was a single Helmeted Friarbird, however the Cassowary House people referred to it as a Hornbill Friarbird split from Helmeted Friarbird. I reserve judgement about that split until I have seen both, but I’m not convinced. There were also several species of honeyeater flying in and out of four different species – Dusky, Graceful, Macleay’s and Yellow-spotted. The other species that was around, and the most numerous one, were the Brush Turkeys and there were loads of them sitting in the trees and grabbing food off the bird feeders and the food that was put onto the ground for other things. The Cassowary House people weren’t very fond of the Brush Turkeys and had a water gun to try and discourage them. There were two further things of interest seen at breakfast, both on the ground below the veranda where breakfast was had, which were an Emerald Dove and a Musky Rat-kangaroo coming for food.

And after breakfast we went on a morning bird walk that we had booked for $30 each which isn’t particularly cheap for the advertised one hour, however it actually lasted for considerably longer than one hour. The bird walk was with the main bird person, Phil Gregory, who also does birding tours all around the world and is a bird taxonomist who contributes to IOC checklist so a very experienced birder and general bird person. He also had a big bookcase filled with different bird books many of which he contributed towards including the full series of Handbook of Birds of the World to which he contributed towards several chapters. Now that’s awesome.

Anyway, we started the bird walk just in the trees right by the house and he was able to identify all the bird calls so we could focus in on the interesting ones and we knew what we were looking for. The first things we saw were Graceful and Yellow-spotted Honeyeaters that Phil was able to identify very easily by their calls. This was followed by a Pied Monarch that showed excellently going up and down a tree and apparently they usually don’t show as well as that and can be quite difficult to find. We then continued up the driveway leading to the main road which had a flurry of new birds as we walked up to the main road. This included two lifers – Grey Whistler and Little Shrike-thrush – as well as Yellow-breasted Boatbill and Pale-yellow Robin. The Pale-yellow Robins here were a different subspecies to the ones in Lamington National Park, and Phil pointed out the buffish markings around the eyes that differentiate them. Now that the robins had been pointed out to me, I noticed that they were very common all around Cassowary House. One other birder on the morning bird walk with us had been staying in Cassowary House for a few days but not done any guided walks before this, and many of the birds that Phil managed to spot were things that he hadn’t managed to find for himself.

We then continued out of the driveway and onto the main road through the rainforest where Phil was able to point out many bird calls but in most cases we couldn’t find the birds themselves with the exception of a Brown Cuckoo-dove sitting in a high tree. We were walking down the road discussing birds of course and not seeing a huge amount when Phil got a phone call from the house to say the cassowaries had arrived. "Feel free to run," he said, "but slow down when you get up to the house so you don’t startle them or run into them". So run I did, I certainly was not going to miss the cassowaries. I slowed down to a fast walk when I reached the driveway and down the driveway back near to the house was a Cassowary through some trees. The others soon arrived and I was told that this cassowary was a female who had recently started showing up at the house. It wasn’t part of their regular and established pair and was very unpredictable, apparently some American birders nearly got killed a few days ago when they continued taking pictures of a charging cassowary! Luckily it was a mock charge. While I was watching at a respectful distance, it stayed around those trees for a while before wandering off. Just after that cassowary had wandered off though, the established pair of cassowaries arrived, walked across the road in front of us, and went around the back of the house to feed on fruit that is left out for them. We went through onto the veranda where we could watch them eat the fruit that had been thrown to them.

Very close, but still safe from their huge claws . When they’d eaten and drunk from a large put filled with water, they wandered off into the forest where, despite being enormous and colourful, they vanished.

Though the one hour of the bird walk had long finished, we had another walk up the road a bit, but it seemed that the bird activity had died down and everything was fairly quiet so we went back to the house and decided what we should do for the day. The town of Kuranda has several animal collections, and my aunt was keen to do some souvenir and gift shopping there so we decided to spend the afternoon in Kuranda. Phil said he was heading to Kuranda around 11:30 anyway (it was about 11:15 then) so he would drop us off and could pick us up in the afternoon. So we kindly accepted and headed off for some zooing in Kuranda.

It was a very short drive there, and in one of the houses Phil pointed out two Bush Stone-curlews sitting in a garden. He then dropped us off in the centre of town and said he could pick us up around four or four thirty and would call beforehand. The nearest zoo to us was the Australian Venom Zoo, so where better place to start then to head there first.


Australian Venom Zoo Review

The entrance to the Venom Zoo is just through a garage door

and you wouldn’t know that there was a zoo there if it wasn’t for some signs and a man with a Woma Python standing outside. My aunt asked him if the Woma Python was native to the rainforests around here and he said he thought it was… not a good start.

The zoo is divided into two sections, a lower basement area which visitors just look around by themselves and an upper area that is done with a guide, so we looked around the lower area first because the guide to show us around the upper area wasn’t ready yet. The big basement area was huge in terms of height with a feel like a hangar, but the actual floor area was small.

It had a slightly neglected feel to it but had a certain charm to a very home made feel, almost like some reptile keeper’s shed with random newspaper cut outs about the place and a memorial wall for Steve Irwin as well as a signed picture of the National Geographic TV presenter Dr. Brady Barr, with his signature under the words, "the Australian Venom Zoo is awesome!!!!". There was also a film about spiders being projected onto a wall, with the sound track of the film and the dim lighting obviously trying to make the place seem scary but it had a slightly odd feel. I’m not really sure what I think of it or how to describe it, but I quite liked it… I think?

There was a long staircase that went around a bit to get to the basement (I am calling it that for want of a better term) where there were various bits of random decorations like rocks, an Australian flag and some aboriginal art. There were live animals down here too of course with the main attraction being a row of enclosures with highly venomous snakes, namely Inland Taipan, Eastern Brown Snake, King Brown Snake, Coastal Taipan, and Northern Death Adder. Behind these enclosures were some more tanks stacked up, a couple of which had scrappy bits of paper on them signing what they were but most didn’t with all sorts of herps in them. Some appeared empty but had substrate and other bits and pieces in them so I suspect they had animals that I couldn’t see. There were other rows of tanks around the basement that were actually visible properly from the visitor area though with a few different pythons, some lizards, and some frogs and there were also signs about what the Venom Zoo does in harvesting venom to make anti-venoms and also captive breeding for the pet trade.

We then went back up to the top area to be shown around the tanks up there. There was a fish tank with a few rainbowfish and one of the staff then showed us each of the tanks with smaller snakes and some frogs. He then came up to a row of tanks for tarantulas and chose a couple to bring out and show us, and he did the same with the row of tanks for scorpions and there was an ultraviolet light so it was awesome to see the scorpions glow under it. There were lots of different signs and bits and pieces around the tanks to look at and the person giving the tour knew a lot about the venomous and poisonous animals of Australia and gave lots of information about them. At the end of the little tour around the tanks the man stood to the side of the door to let the people who had just done the tour out. I ignored that to have another look at some of the tanks and take a few more pictures. I’d paid the entrance fee so was jolly well going to look at everything properly.

So the Australian Venom Zoo is certainly really interesting. If you look at the reviews on Trip Advisor you may get the feeling that it’s a bit rubbish and not worth a visit but I would disagree. Yes, it’s quite expensive to go in, yes, most of the enclosures are just little pet shop style tanks, yes, there’s lots of random ‘rubbish’ dotted around (which I actually like), yes, there’s almost no signage, and yes, there isn’t a huge amount there. But having said that, it is inexplicably really awesome! And I liked its uniqueness a lot.

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After the Australian Venom Zoo, we decided to have lunch and at lunch it was decided that afterwards my aunt would go and spend a few hours shopping while I looked at the other zoos. There are four further zoos in Kuranda bringing the total to five in total. One of them though, BatReach, a rescue centre for bats and other native wildlife, is only open on certain days and was closed that day so I couldn’t visit. I did walk past though just to peek through the fence and I could see a couple of large aviaries but nothing properly. The other three zoos are Birdworld, the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary, and Kuranda Koala Gardens which are all right next to each other and have a combined ‘Kuranda Wildlife Experience’ ticket which costs around $50. So I got the ticket and started with the zoo closest to me.


Birdworld Kuranda Review

Birdworld is, to put it simply, just one large aviary. Upon entry visitors are given a sheet identifying the free-flying birds (pictures of which can be seen in a comment here and here) and the person at the entrance described it as a self-guided tour. You enter at a higher part of the aviary where there is an area of decking with parrot toys and things for parrots to climb on, and boxes of bird food so many of the tamer birds, mainly parrots, congregate around here. Visitors are also able to feed the birds in this area. There is also a view from the decking looking down over the rest of the aviary which is on a lower level with some very large trees also viewable from here. Also on the upper area was an area with plants and raised perches for the parrots, as well as a little pond and another decked area with a small cage for some finches that must have had to be separated from the rest for some reason.


(a view of part of the upper area of the aviary, which gives an idea of the feel)

Most of the aviary was at a lower level which included a large pond for the several waterbird species and some turtles as well as trees with nest boxes and large areas of vegetation with paths going around them. Also at the bottom of the aviary is an enclosure for cassowaries which was a fairly standard enclosure, if a bit small. The cassowary enclosure was of course contained within the main aviary area so the free-flying species could also use it and there were many Buff-banded Rails there.

So that’s pretty much it for Birdworld Kuranda, quite a nice aviary with lots of birds flying around. Though there were a few rather odd looking parrot mutations in there.

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After visiting Birdworld, I headed around the corner to the next zoo on the list, the Kuranda Koala Gardens.


Kuranda Koala Gardens Review

The Koala Gardens is a small zoo with native Australian animals, trying to give a general selection of all the typical ABC native zoo animals.


(a map of the zoo that pretty much shows everything)

There is a very large enclosure with Freshwater Crocodiles at the entrance with a ridiculous number of crocodiles and then there is a pathway going in a loop around the zoo. The species list isn’t particularly long, but they have all the standard things like a wallaby walkthrough, wombats, a turtle pond, a selection of snakes and lizards including a particularly pretty Darwin Carpet Python, and of course the Koalas and there is also a holding/cuddling a Koala experience/photo thing, though it seemed that the Koala spent all its time in the arms of the person trying to get you to pay to hold it rather than its exhibit, which can't have been particularly good for the Koala.

There are a few smaller mammals too like Red-legged Pademelons in the wallaby walkthrough, and Long-nosed Potoroos that share the Koala enclosure but most interesting for me were two glider enclosures, one with Squirrel Gliders that I had already seen several times in previous zoos, and one with a Mahogany Glider that I was pleased to see because I missed it at David Fleay.

Also worth mentioning is a small historical display about the history of the area, and there was another animal exhibit under construction which was going to be a walk-through snake enclosure that looked like it could be quite interesting. And I think that’s all there is to say about the place, it’s not very large but it’s not bad. Most of the enclosures were alright, there was a reasonably good selection of species for its size, so I would overall say it’s not bad.

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The final zoo that I would be visiting that day was the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary. I had left that until last because it was the one I was least interested in, in case had to rush, but I still had plenty of time left so I could do it at my leisure.


Australian Butterfly Sanctuary Review

There was a very grand entrance leading up to it which was, as you could guess with a butterfly house, was just a large greenhouse (map here) which had various ponds and bits of vegetation around with lots of informational signs and of course a variety of butterflies flying around (species list on this sign). In my opinion the prettiest and most interesting butterflies in there were the Cairns Birdwings but there was a variety of interesting butterflies around as well as various plants, many of which were signed.


(a view of the main butterfly house)

As well as the main butterfly house, there were a couple of other things viewable. There were enclosures with the caterpillars of each of the butterfly and moth species and also, as with most butterfly houses, a butterfly hatching box type thing, but this was a particularly large one. There were also windows viewing into a laboratory area and there was a little nursery growing the food plants of the different butterfly species. Also at the exit was a mini museum with cases of butterflies arranged geographically as well as displays arranged in artistic patterns, such as a wave of monarchs. So I thought it was quite a good butterfly house as far as butterfly houses go.

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So after the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary, I met up with my aunt again at the shops and we still had about forty five minutes before being picked up. She wasn’t actually done with the shopping anyway so we walked around some more shops for a bit. At this point I particularly wished that BatReach was open because I’d definitely have time to do it and make it a five zoo day but that couldn’t be helped. We were soon picked up and taken back to Cassowary House and I, of course, had a walk around to look for birds. There were still a few species that I particularly wanted to see, namely Orange-footed Scrubfowl, Spotted Catbird, and Chowchilla. While we were in the car driving back I asked Phil for suggestions on where to see them and he said I had a reasonable chance of seeing them and he suggested some places. He also said that down at the creek at Cassowary House there was the possibility of Forest, Little, and Azure Kingfishers and maybe even Platypus. Phil also pointed out a marshy, muddy spot near the house where I had a reasonably good chance of finding a Red-necked Crake and I of course spent some time waiting there but it didn’t show up. I did see plenty of interesting birds though like honeyeaters, figbirds, Pale-yellow Robins, and others that I also saw that morning so it was still enjoyable. I did actually hear two of the main birds I was looking for, both the scrubfowl and catbird, and I'm pretty sure I heard the crake as well.

After dinner, I went for some spotlighting. I was told that the only possum regularly occurring was Striped Possum and those were quite rarely seen, but there were other mammals around like Blossom Bats, Red-legged Pademelons, and Bandicoots amongst others, as well as Lesser Sooty-owls. We walked up and down the driveway and also up and down the road but I didn’t see a huge amount apart from some huge spiders. I did hear a distinctive whistle from a Lesser Sooty-owl and startled something fairly large in the bushes by the driveway which I think was a bandicoot, but there was no other vertebrate action that night, and no more new birds after the additions from the morning. I was very pleased with the birds I had seen though, especially the riflebird and cassowary, and I enjoyed the zoos of Kuranda.

New birds seen:

Victoria's Riflebird
Emerald Dove
Yellow-spotted Honeyeater
Graceful Honeyeater
Pied Monarch
Varied Triller
Grey Whistler
Little Shrike-thrush
Southern Cassowary

Note: because I am of course restricted to six pictures per post and I’ve covered a lot here, please click through the to the galleries and hyperlinks to see more. I was tempted to split each zoo review off into separate posts, but I wanted to keep everything together in day by day posts as I have been doing, and each review isn’t very long anyway.

Posts from the day: http://www.zoochat.com/24/trip-australia-june-july-2016-a-449389/index5.html#post967999 and http://www.zoochat.com/24/trip-australia-june-july-2016-a-449389/index5.html#post968006

 

Day 20 – Last Day in Queensland – 26th of June

For my final day in Queensland, I wanted to add as many of the birds that I had missed as possible, so I got up to look around at sunrise. The previous morning when I went for a walk by myself, I walked down the road which was largely unsuccessful. But one of the other birders staying at Cassowary House mentioned that he had seen both Spotted Catbird and Orange-footed Scrubfowl in the 'orchard' area around the big fig tree that morning, so I went there to try and find them. Before I even got to the fig tree though, in the forest along the pathway between my room and the tree I managed to locate a catbird moving about deep in the undergrowth but allowing me to get snippets of views here and there as it hopped around. And when I got to the tree itself I scared off some Orange-footed Scrubfowls that were sitting under the tree. Most of the group of scrubfowl left immediately as I approached, but one stayed for a few seconds longer allowing me to have a look at it. I stayed around that tree until I went for breakfast in the hope that either species would come out into the open, but neither did, and there wasn’t anything else new, but enjoyed watching the Rufous Fantails, Pale-yellow Robins, and the Wompoo Fruit-doves that seemed to always be in the tree. On the way to breakfast, though I passed by an exposed perch which I was told was sometimes used at the display area for the riflebirds and on there was a male riflebird, not displaying, but digging in the wood, I assume for food.


While at breakfast, the riflebirds, friarbird, and various honeyeaters were all around the same as yesterday, and I was pleased to be able to get some pictures of the male riflebird sitting still.

While we were eating breakfast though, it started to rain very heavily, too heavily to start the morning bird walk, so we just stayed at the veranda looking at the various birds, including a Little Shrike-thrush, as well as some lovely Black Jezebel Butterflies. The rain eventually began to die down, so we started the morning bird walk with Phil. We were the only people on it this time, and we started by heading down to the fig tree again. Phil heard a call that he said was a Yellow-breasted Boatbill, and by imitating it he was able to get the boatbill to come out into the open. I got a really nice view of it, and I may have managed to get a picture this time if it wasn’t for the fact that my camera lens decided to mist up for no apparent reason. Also around here were huge flocks of Fig Parrots up in the fig tree, though while they sat in the tree we weren’t actually able to see them at all, and we only saw them as they flew out of the tree and as they flew back in. It was quite surprising that we couldn't see them in the tree though because there were dozens of them. We would thoroughly scan the canopy of the tree and decide that all of the parrots had left when a flock of about half a dozen flew up and out of the tree out of nowhere. Or a small flock would fly into the tree, and we would take careful note of which branch they were at and look at that closely through binoculars, but we still couldn't see them. In fact, neither of us managed to lock in on the parrots with binoculars at all despite there being loads of them. It was rather funny actually, and it made me realise how special my sighting on the Cairns Esplanade really was.

It started to drizzle again though, and then began to rain heavily, so we decided to pause the bird walk and continue when the rain died down a bit. So we went back to our room to wait, and I sat on the balcony looking to see if there was anything around. I saw a Macleay’s Honeyeater and a Little Shrike-thrush, but little else. While we were sitting there though I looked across to the driveway and noticed that a pair of cassowaries had arrived and started to head downstairs to the area under the veranda where the food is left for them!

It was only drizzling slightly so I of course went to have a look at them. The cassowaries, this time the regular pair that visits Cassowary House daily, spent some time by the veranda, allowing lots of time to watch them before they gulped down some water (which was very interesting to watch) and left.

Once the cassowaries had left, we decided that the rain was light enough now to continue with the bird walk. We decided to go back onto the main road and continue down it. There were lots of Figbirds of course, as there had been every day, and I also saw a couple of Australian Swiftlets flying around above us which was the only new bird of the bird walk. Also of interest were the many Forest Kingfishers sitting on electric wires by the road

as well as a flock of Red-browed Finches in a bush, which were my only ones outside of Lamington National Park. It was drizzling pretty much constantly though which did decrease bird activity, but while we walked we were able to discuss different things about taxonomy. Mainly bird taxonomy of course, and particularly Australian and New Guinea bird taxonomy because Phil maintains checklists for both of those, be we discussed mammal taxonomy enough for him to reveal how 'horrified' he was at the lemur and ungulate splits. It continued to drizzle for the duration of the bird walk alternating with medium to heavy rain. When we got back to the house it was already into the afternoon and the rain seemed to be getting heavier. Originally, our plan for the late morning and afternoon was to walk to the Barron Falls and back which is supposed to be a very impressive waterfall and a really nice walk with the possibility of birds along the way, but because it was a bit late by then and it wouldn’t have been a particularly pleasant walk in the relatively heavy rain anyway, we had to scrap that plan and we just stayed in Cassowary House. It was also revealed that if we wanted to get back into Cairns cheaply by public transport that would drop us off at the airport, we would have to leave Kuranda before three despite the flight taking off at eight which would get us to the airport about three and a half hours before our flight.

While we waited in the hotel room, I decided that during a patch of just drizzle rather than full rain I would go for a walk around. There wasn’t a huge amount of bird life about, but by the fig tree, where I had seen so much over the last couple of days, there was a Red-legged Pademelon just sitting in the open on the edge of the forest in the daylight.

The pademelon didn’t stay for very long though, and not long after it disappeared I noticed something moving on the ground which was a Green Tree Snake that slithered off along the ground and then up into a tree on the edge of the forest.

I also looked up into the tree itself, and as well as Wompoos, there was also a Superb Fruit Dove there hiding extremely well. I was pleased to have managed to see it because another birder had seen one the previous day, and given that I particularly like pigeons and doves, it was nice to add another species onto the list.

Not long after that, we had to go back to Kuranda to get the bus into Cairns. This time rather than a big bus company like we attempted to get to go into Kuranda, we got a small bus called John’s Kuranda Shuttle because they would drop us off right at the airport. The drive down to Cairns was uneventful until we got near to the airport. The Cairns airport is surrounded by Mangroves and because of this there are many mangrove birds around, and while we were stuck behind some traffic lights or airport traffic or something, I saw on a fence by the side of the road that there was a Torresian (Collared) Kingfisher there, which was the final addition for the Queensland list.

We got to the airport about three and a half hours before our flight was due to take off. It would have been nice to look in the mangroves near the airport but we were limited by the fact that we had all our stuff with us, and you can’t walk in the mangroves right next to the airport (for obvious security reasons) and to actually go in the mangroves you have to walk along the road to a boardwalk a few kilometres away. If we had our own transport we would probably have been able to do something with this time like visit BatReach in Kuranda, or the Cairns Wildlife Dome, both of which are zoos that I would have liked to go to but that we didn’t have time to visit, but being restricted to public transport we couldn’t do either of those. And it was still raining too.

Although our final day in Queensland was rather interrupted by the weather, we were generally very lucky with the weather throughout the trip, with the only other day where it affected what we were doing being one of the days in Brisbane. I had also been extremely lucky with the birds, and had seen the vast majority of what I wanted to. At this point, I would also like to say how awesome Cassowary house is. The location, the quality of the rooms, the birds, and the people there. Definitely a must-visit place while around there for anyone interested in birds. The price was also not as expensive as you would think for a specialist birding lodge like this (which generally charge much higher prices) which was $160 per night for a twin room with a bathroom and a kitchenette, including breakfast.

So that was the end of the sixteen days in Queensland. I was slightly sad it was over, I’d have loved to spend another few weeks exploring in Far North Queensland, but the trip was pretty amazing overall, and I’d fitted a lot into such a short time. Though the Australia trip as a whole was not over yet, and I still had a little under five weeks in Perth!

New birds seen:

Spotted Catbird
Orange-Footed Scrubfowl
Australian Swiftlet
Superb Fruit Dove
Torresian Kingfisher

New reptile:

Green Tree Snake

 

And here is the sign at the entrance to the driveway leading to Cassowary House. Because why not?

 

Almost Five Weeks in Perth - 27th of June to the 29th of July

So I wasn’t sure quite how to approach the almost five weeks I had in Perth with regards to this thread. Most of the time was actually not doing anything very interesting, and I only did some birding in the mornings and evenings, and fitted stuff in whenever I could. Though my day trip to Rottnest Island certainly deserves its own post, and I plan to review the six different zoos that I visited while in Perth. There were also little bits and pieces of birding and wildlife watching here and there that deserve a mention so in this post I’m going to go through week by week what I did mentioning the noteworthy wildlife here and there and making a note of the stuff that I’m going to give separate posts to.

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Week One in Perth After Queensland – 27th of June to the 3rd of July

As you may recall, everything I have done so far in Australia was not with my parents but with my Australian family members and I mentioned that my parents would be joining me in Perth later, but for most of this first week I was still staying with my aunt because my parents (and my brother) didn’t arrive until the third of July.
Due to certain circumstances however, I wasn’t able to do a huge amount during this first week apart from stuff in the local area. My aunt does live in the Perth Hills though so there is a lot of interesting wildlife just around her house including a variety of very interesting birds that I enjoyed watching, even stuff just in her garden.

Just around the local area and doing stuff that wasn’t specifically to look for birds I was able to add three species, Western Gerygone, Hoary-headed Grebe and Pied Stilt. I also made two visits to places during that week specifically to look for wildlife. The first was an afternoon in Lesmurdie Falls National Park which is a national park on the edge of the Darling Scarp with a large waterfall. I saw lots of interesting birds there, but all stuff I had seen in Perth before going to Queensland. I did see a new reptile though which was a Bobtail Skink. Rather interestingly, on all my previous visits to Lesmurdie Falls I also saw bobtails so I guess that is a particularly good site for them.


The other place I visited to look for wildlife was John Forrest National Park. It’s quite a nice national park and I visit regularly when I go to Perth. It’s very good for both Red-tailed Black Cockatoos and Red-capped Parrots, both of which I saw many of, though sadly I was unable to find any Western Rosellas or Red-eared Firetails, both of which I particularly wanted to see. I did find one psittacine year bird that was a group of Western Corellas, rather than the Little and Long-billed Corellas that are more common within Perth itself. The scenery there is very nice too, and it can be quite good for birds of prey, particularly Wedge-tailed Eagles. Though I didn’t see any Wedge-tailed Eagles (or wedgies to the locals!), I did manage to get a bird of prey lifer that was a Little Eagle.

At John Forrest National Park there is a ‘tavern’ where lots of wildlife congregates in the garden to be fed by visitors and often steal from them as well. The Australian Ringneck Parrots, Australian Magpies and Laughing Kookaburras are the main species that will approach tables of people eating to try and steal food. Kangaroo food is also left out by the people that run the tavern to attract a large mob of kangaroos that are not shy of coming amongst the tables and lying around right next to people. Though the kangaroos are very regular there and you can’t miss them, one new mammal had started to turn up since I last went to John Forrest National Park two years before, which was a ridiculously brazen Southern Brown Bandicoot. It seemed to be mainly there to steal kangaroo food but was not shy of running around people and under tables, investigating my bag, and while I stood still watching it, it even came up and touched my shoe with its nose!


So I didn’t do a huge amount that week, but I did do a little bit of interesting birding and wildlife watching that I thought was worth a mention in this thread.

New birds seen that week:

Western Gerygone
Hoary Headed Grebe
Little Eagle
Western Corella
Pied Stilt

New reptile:

Bobtail Skink

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Week Two in Perth After Queensland – 4th to the 10th of July

For this week and for the remainder of my time in Australia I was staying with my parents and my brother in a self-catering cottage, rather than with my aunt as I had been up to this point. The cottage was actually in quite a nice location completely surrounded by bushland that is contiguous with Korung National Park and to get into the national park itself is only a few kilometres walk through the bush. So of course I spent a lot of time walking around and looking for birds. There were also loads of Western Grey Kangaroos around, and rather than the tame ones at picnic areas and suchlike that I had been seeing, these kangaroos were properly wild. There was lots of interesting birdlife around too including many different parrots, honeyeaters, robins, whistlers, waterfowl and interesting things like that. Red-capped Parrots were fairly numerous, and that is a species that I particularly like. Though I was up at sunrise doing morning bird walks most mornings, I wasn’t actually able to add anything new for the trip list, but I still enjoyed walking about in the bush. I also tried a little bit of spotlighting because with so much wildlife about in the day, I thought there must be stuff about at night. There were lots of Western Grey Kangaroos about and I found a location near a car park and picnic area where Southern Brown Bandicoots could be seen quite reliably.

There were also a couple of introduced mammal species around, and I saw quite a few rabbits and couple of foxes.

Though there was a lack of new wildlife sightings that week, I did, however, visit Caversham Wildlife Park on the 4th, Perth Zoo on the 6th, and AQWA on the 10th and I will be uploading pictures of those zoos (and species lists of the former two) in the next couple of days, and posting reviews in this thread not long after that.

One last thing that is worth mentioning for this week is that while I was at AQWA my mum who was at the accommodation, saw a Western Rosella in the garden! I was very annoyed that I had missed it because it was a species that I particularly wanted to see, and I would still be particularly annoyed now if it wasn’t for the fact that I managed to see them about two weeks later.

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Week Three in Perth After Queensland – 11th to the 17th of July

During this week, I continued with the same birding in the local area and doing morning bushwalks and spotlighting on some nights. I was able to add some new birds to this list for that area, but nothing that was new for the trip as a whole. I was able to add twelve new birds for the trip though over two separate trips. The first was a morning and afternoon spent in the Bungedore Park and Wungong Dam area on the 16th and a trip to Yanchep National Park on the 17th, and I will be writing full posts for each of those because I think there is just about enough to warrant separate posts.
I also had another visit to John Forrest National Park where the same bandicoot that touched my foot with its nose was around and still just as lacking in shyness.

And I was also able to visit two further zoos that week which were the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Park on the 12th, and the Cohunu Koala Park on the 13th, both of which will have pictures and species lists posted, as well as reviews in this thread.

New birds seen that week:
At Bungedore Park and Wungong Dam:
Australian Hobby
Red-winged Fairy-wren
White-breasted Robin
Baudin's Black Cockatoo
Inland Thornbill
Dusky Woodswallow

At Yanchep National Park:
Whistling Kite
Tawny-crowned Honeyeater
Black-faced Woodswallow
Yellow-throated Miner
Jacky Winter
Black-shouldered Kite

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Week Four in Perth After Queensland – 18th to the 24th of July

I did two particularly significant day trips during this week. The first was a trip to Peel Zoo on the 21st with a stop in Serpentine National Park on the way back, and the second was a long day trip to Rottnest Island on the 23rd, both of which will be getting their own posts.

As well as the birding in the local area and seeing the same things, there were a couple of bits of birding here and there that are worth mentioning. The first was a trip to the Canning Dam area (but not to the actual dam itself) where there were many interesting birds around, two of which were new for the year, those being Australasian Pipit and Western Rosella. Both particularly nice birds because the pipit was a lifer and the rosella was a species that was high on my list of things I wanted to see, and I had been looking for, for a long time. Two other interesting things that I saw around here were actually footprints, the first was for an echidna which was not very surprising because my aunt had actually seen an echidna here in the past, and there were other signs of the presence of echidnas around too. The second was a bit more surprising and was a trail of footprints that I’m pretty sure were Emu footprints and must have been within the last two days because it had rained two days ago. So both very exciting, but I didn’t see the animals themselves.

The second notable bird addition this week (outside of the ones in the two proper posts that I will be doing) was actually seen while I was out walking in the bushland around the accommodation and Korung National Park. I noticed on the path up ahead a small bird hopping about on the ground and at first I thought it would be a thornbill or something like that but, when I looked at it through binoculars I realised that it was a Red-eared Firetail! It was a species notably absent from my lifelist that was one of the main things I was looking for around Perth. I must have spent dozens and dozens of hours walking in ideal firetail habitat where I knew they should occur but not seeing them at all so I was ecstatic to finally see one, and I got a really good view too. Such an awesome bird.


I also had a second visit to Herdsman Lake of the trip (after a visit on one of the first days) and the experience was much the same including the rain from the first visit as it was raining again today! (though not as much). I saw all the interesting waterfowl again including the shovelers, Pink-eared Ducks, Musk Ducks, and everything else, and I saw a new species for the list as well that was a Chestnut Teal. Several of the ducks also had ducklings including a few families of Pacific Black Ducks and Australian Wood-ducks, and there were three interesting species at Herdsman Lake that I had already seen on the trip but didn’t see the previous time I was at Herdsman which were Crested Pigeons, Pied Stilts, and an Australian Hobby which was being mobbed by Willie Wagtails. And another thing worthy of note at Herdsman Lake were two dead birds that a saw on the grass at the lakeside – a Boobook Owl and a Musk Duck. And finally, just as we were leaving the lake, I got a fantastic view of a Yellow-billed Spoonbill.


After Herdsman (the same day) we also went to another nearby lake called Jack Adder Lake which was a typical suburban lake with all the common waterfowl. There was another hobby in one of the trees around the lake though, and a sign about the birds at the lake listed some interesting waterfowl species that I had not seen yet, though I think it may have been a rather optimistic sign.

New birds seen that week:

Australasian Pipit
Western Rosella
Red-eared Firetail
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Chestnut Teal
Black-browed Albatross
White-fronted Chat
Red-capped Robin
Banded Stilt
Rock Parrot
Southern Giant Petrel
Australasian Gannet
Indian Yellow-nosed Albatross
Red-necked Stint

New mammals:

Western Brush-wallaby
Quokka
Humpback Whale


New reptile:

King Skink

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Week Five in Perth After Queensland – 25th to the 29th of July

The final 'week' in Perth wasn’t actually a full week, but was just four days. For the last two of those days I was back to staying with my aunt because it was cheaper for my parents to book a return flight and for me to book a return flight with the same airline I flew out with, than it would be for me to try and book two one way tickets and return the same way as them. I didn’t mind of course because my route only had one transit (Dubai) rather than theirs which had two (Singapore and Munich) and I much prefer Emirates anyway. It would also mean that I could have a little bit longer for some last minute birding in Perth. Though I did visit several different sites for birding including a revisit to Lesmurdie Falls National Park where I got a lovely view of a Golden Whistler and a couple of other places as well, I didn’t see anything new.

The one new addition from this week however was seen at the accommodation the day before my parents left, and it was a very small reptile addition but a very nice one - a Fence Skink seen, rather appropriately, on a fence.

I think the cold weather and the presence of introduced kookaburras lead to a lack of small reptiles. There was a subspecific addition though, which was the western subspecies of the White-naped Honeyeater, which was nice to see.

New reptiles:

Fence Skink

So I hope that rather higgledy-piggledy post was still of interest. Of course most of the time in Perth was spent seeing family, and friends of family, and I probably wouldn’t have visited Australia at all if it wasn’t for the fact that most of my mum’s family is there, so the wildlife stuff and zoos was pretty much all a bonus. And I did manage to see and do a lot of stuff.


So just to summarise, this is what is still to come for this thread, in order:

Caversham Wildlife Park
Perth Zoo
AQWA
Armadale Reptile and Widlife Park
Cohunu Koala Park
Bungedore Park and Wungong Dam
Yanchep National Park
Peel Zoo
Rottnest Island

And I still have the pictures of all the zoos and Rottnest still to upload so there’s a fair amount still to look forward to (or to dread, depending on how you view this thread!). I am aiming to have all of that written, and the pictures uploaded, by around early September before I go back to school, because I’ll have very little free time after that.

 

Caversham Wildlife Park Review – 4th of July 2016

Caversham Wildlife Park is quite a large zoo located a bit of a way North-east of Perth but still within the Perth suburbs. The zoo almost exclusively holds Australian native animals, and has a rather impressive species list with not too far below 200 species. I was particularly impressed at the diversity of native bird species held. A full species list can be seen here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/caversham-wildlife-park-show-species-list-457925/.

The zoo is located within Whiteman Park which is a large recreational park with lots of bushland and lots of wild Western Grey Kangaroos which can be seen easily on the drive up to the zoo. I believe there are lots of birding opportunities in the park as well, but I didn’t actually have time to spend birding because the zoo does take quite a few hours to see thoroughly and is a bit of a drive from Perth. I did spend a bit of time watching a very bold Scarlet Robin hopping around the Tasmanian Devil enclosure though, as well as a wild Buff-banded Rail.

The zoo is roughly divided into six main sections with a few other exhibits along the paths between the sections. These sections are a large mixed kangaroo walkthrough, a large domestics section, and four sections that are geographical parts of Australia – North-east, South-west, South-east, and North, with wildlife from those areas. Outside of these sections there is a reptile house, a large u-shape of bird aviaries, 'Meet the Wombats and Friends' show, and a couple of small aviaries dotted around.

Here is a map of the zoo: http://www.cavershamwildlife.com.au...6/caversham-wildlife-park-map-of-the-park.jpg, and although it doesn’t show the details of species very well, it gives a general idea and general shape (what I would describe as a 'flower' with different 'petals') but I would say the map makes the zoo look much smaller than it actually is.

Just outside the entrance to the zoo is a large aviary with no signage on it but seemed to just be full of Diamond Doves with a couple of pheasants on the ground – Golden Pheasant and Swinhoe’s Pheasant, and a Luzon Bleeding-heart Dove. My parents dropped me off at the entrance which allowed me to do the zoo by myself at my own pace and, picked me up later when I was done. Upon entering are a couple of pretty standard aviaries for Grass Owl and Laughing Kookaburra, and after looking at those I continued to the first geographical section of the zoo, the North East Section.

The first aviary has Rainbow Lorikeets, Masked Lapwings and Eclectus Parrots, and most interestingly, a Satin Bowerbird that was building a bower. After that are a couple of paddocks with Southern Cassowary, however while I was looking at the cassowary I heard something rustle in the bushes in front. After a little while, and once other noisy people had left, I saw a Buff-banded Rail emerge from the bush and walk into the paddock and behind it followed a little fluffy black chick! The adult and chick wandered around the cassowary paddock a bit, with the adult pecking for food to give to the chick, and darted in and out of bushes, then they disappeared into some other bushes and didn’t come out again. But that was still a pretty cool sighting.

Continuing on with the actual zoo review, I then passed through a large walkthrough aviary, still in the North East Section with birds from that part of Australia, and continued through it, still within the same section. Further around there were a couple of enclosures for wallabies on one side of the path for Bennett’s and Swamp Wallabies, the former obviously not appropriate for that section and it would have probably been nice to have Agile Wallabies or something else there, but never mind. And on the opposite side of the path were a couple of aviaries, one for Spectacled Flying Foxes and a few more for a few different birds. There was also a large Lace Monitor enclosure and an enclosure for Koalas and Red-necked Pademelons, the latter possibly not in the correct geographical area but I suppose North-east and South-east are subjective so the Pademelons could be in either. There were also some Magpie Geese in an un-covered grassy area, as well as an enclosure for Squirrel gliders, and upon exit from this particular section were a few more interesting birds. Namely three species of owl – Masked, Lesser Sooty, and Barking, all in fairly standard but not particularly good owl enclosures – and also an aviary containing King Parrots, Rose-crowned Fruit-dove, White-headed Pigeon, Black-breasted Buttonquail, and a pair of Green Catbirds. A particularly interesting aviary I thought.


After leaving the North-east Section, I entered the kangaroo walkthrough, the entrance to which was just nearby (as you can see on the map linked above). This walkthrough is actually quite large, though most of the kangaroos and people congregate around the area where the food is which visitors can feed to the kangaroos. They are mostly Red Kangaroos with a fair few Western Greys and a few Agile Wallabies dotted around too. What was quite surprising though, maybe even shocking, was the number of albino kangaroos there, which must have been at least a third of the kangaroos, maybe getting towards half. I don’t know if they are specifically breeding albino kangaroos or not, but they definitely are breeding because I saw many albino females with albino joeys in pouches, and I guess they are an interesting curiosity for tourists, but I’ve never seen quite so many before.

Though most of the kangaroos, as I said, were around the entrance area where the food is,

there were kangaroos dotted around the rest of the enclosure too, and I went all the way up and down the enclosure just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and the only thing, apart from more kangaroos, that I would have missed if I hadn’t done that whole thing was an Emu enclosure where one of the Emus had an egg. A keeper said that the Emus have been laying loads of eggs recently, and the eggs were collected to either be used to feed the Quolls in an interesting way, or cleaned out and sold in the gift shop as souvenirs.

So I exited the kangaroo walkthrough, and continued to the next geographical section – the South West. First in this section were two aviaries, quite a small one for Carnaby’s White-tailed Black Cockatoos, and a rather nice one for Western Rosella, Elegant Parrot, and Purple-crowned Lorikeet. Next are a few paddocks for Tammar Wallabies (including an albino), Wallaroos, and Cape Barren Geese, and then is a very large walkthrough waterfowl aviary. The waterfowl species were all fairly common, though it was quite a nice aviary, and within the aviary were sections for Oblong Turtles and Quokkas. Outside that aviary, in the rest of the South West Section, were a couple more enclosures for Quokkas as well as an enclosure with a rather aggressive pair of Black Swans.

Also near here, and for me at least the most interesting part of this section, was a long, and rather nicely done up, aviary with a wide variety of interesting birds (on the species list everything from Chestnut Teal to Brown Quail, inclusive). So a very visually pleasing aviary, and seemingly pretty good for the birds as well.

Opposite this aviary was a large enclosure with an 'Under Construction' sign on the glass, but from the location within the geographic sections, and the appearance of the enclosure, I would guess this will be for Little Blue Penguins. And finally for this section of the zoo were a couple of aviaries at the exit of this section holding a few more South West Australian birds such as Red-capped and Regent Parrots.

So I then continued across the bridge over the walkthrough kangaroo enclosure (that bisects the zoo) and the next thing was the reptile house. This held the majority of the zoo’s reptile collection, mostly in rather small, though I wouldn’t say smaller than average tanks, with a fairly big collection of Australian reptiles and two species of amphibian. There were some interesting species, but the exhibit itself was not particularly unusual.

Next along from the reptile house was the 'Wombat and Friends!' show which is a heavily advertised show that is on several times per day. The next show was in twenty minutes which, coincidentally, would be about the right time, because opposite the show area was a little area of picnic benches surrounded by a U-shape of aviaries. There was a variety of interesting birds in these aviaries including a few that I think are quite unusual, and the highlight in these aviaries for me were the Spinifex Pigeons that I thought were awesome. They were all fairly good aviaries, particularly the one with the small birds which had the most unusual species and seemed to be the nicest and best for the birds, though some of the ones for the larger birds may have been a little on the small side.

So I looked in those aviaries for a while, not managing to see the White-winged Fairy-wren so I would have to go back (I went back right at the end of the day and saw it) and then the doors were opened allowing people to go into the 'Wombat and Friends' show. This show is held in a tent-type thing and I don’t really know how to concisely describe it so here is a picture and is actually a very large area which is good because being such a popular attraction within the zoo, it was full of people.

Inside were several 'stalls' with different animal encounters. The main attraction was a photograph with a bored-looking wombat and there was a big queue to do that, but some of the other displays were more interesting to me. There was a Spotted-tail Quoll on a leash being fed some meat contained within an Emu egg, and it was amazing to get such a close view. There were also displays of Bettongs, birds of prey, and parrots, and a few displays where the animals could be touched and stroked which were for Golden Brushtail Possum and various reptiles. So the 'Wombat and Friends' show was certainly quite interesting, and definitely a big draw for visitors. Speaking to the keepers with the animals, they do seem to have the best interests of the animals in mind, not subjecting them to undue stress, and rotating the animals around so no individual animal spent too long being in the show.

After that show, I continued on to the domestics area which takes up a fairly large area with fields, but I wasn’t so interested in it because I'm not interested in domestics. There was a little nursery and hatchery area with some eggs in incubators and little chicks, and also a walk-in petting area with some turkeys, goats, and sheep, but most of the domestics area was fairly large paddocks with a variety of domestic hoofstock. I did walk around the domestics paddocks though and as well as typical llamas, cows, pigs, sheep, horses, etc. there were also Fallow Deer and an Ostrich.

The next geographic section was the North Section, which started with a small aviary for Red-collared Lorikeet, Black-winged Stilt, and Blue-faced Honeyeater, followed by quite a small enclosure for a (small) Freshwater Crocodile which would be much to small for a full size one, but wasn't too bad for this smaller individual. Opposite these was a row of enclosures with Brushtail Bettongs, and each with a Golden Brushtail Possum.

Continuing around the North Section were then enclosures for Hairy-nosed Wombats and Northern Nailtail Wallabies, and an enclosure with two very active Spotted-tail Quolls that were rather interesting to watch. Next in the North Section were quite a few birds. There were two large aviaries with birds of prey – Black-breasted Buzzard and Wedge-tailed Eagle, a few smallish parrot aviaries with common cockatoo species, and more interestingly, a few aviaries with small birds and two further large mixed species aviaries. The highlight for me in the small aviaries were a few Flock Bronzewings which were nice to see, and the two other large aviaries mostly held some waterbirds, including larger species such as Radjah Shelducks, and also held Australian Bustards, one with a single individual, and one with a small group of them. Both of the enclosures containing the bustards were quite impressive in terms of size, giving the bustards quite a bit of space.

The bird aviaries were then followed by a few more mammal and reptile enclosures with two enclosures for groups of Dingoes which were doing a lot of howling to each other, Red Fox, and Short-beaked Echinda, and a variety of reptiles (in different enclosures) which were Shinglebacks, Perentie, Eastern Water Dragon, Northern Red-faced Turtle, and Plate-shelled Turtle. Most of these were fairly standard enclosures, though the Perentie enclosure had an underground burrow with viewing into it that I guess must have been heated for winter temperatures.


And finally in the North Section were two further bird aviaries with a variety of species of small birds with quite a few unusual species including Painted Firetails, White-browed Woodswallows, Varied Lorikeet, and Red-backed Fairy-wren. There was also a budgie repeatedly trying to mate with a Diamond Dove in one of the aviaries.

I then had one further geographic section of the zoo to see, the South East. Between the North Section and South East Section though, was a row of aviaries with Barn Owls, Boobook Owls, Tawny Frogmouths, Nankeen Kestrels, and Blue-winged Kookaburra, and also an Emu enclosure. The South East section is smaller than the other sections, though that may be because a large area of it was closed for the construction of a new 'photograph with koalas' exhibit. Meanwhile, there is a temporary enclosure for the koalas that does look rather ugly, but was the same basic structure as all 'photograph with koala' exhibits that I have seen which are little more than koalas on sticks. Before coming up to the koala enclosure though, was a row of basic mesh-fronted enclosures for various small mammals, namely Black and Grey-headed Flying Fox, Sugar Glider, Southern Brown Bandicoot, and Long-nosed Potoroo. There are also larger, but similar style, enclosures for Spotted-tail Quolls, and Golden Brushtail Possum and Rufous Bettong, and a much larger enclosure for Yellow-footed Rock-wallabies, which is a species that is particularly strikingly coloured. Also in the South East Section, as with throughout the zoo, there were a couple of aviaries dotted around. Specifically, a row of aviaries for small birds, and aviaries for Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo and Gang-gang Cockatoo.

And the two final things at around the exit of the South East Section but back on the main path were enclosures for both Common and Hairy-nosed Wombats, and two enclosures and a viewing area for Tasmanian Devils was the final enclosure of the zoo. At this point I popped back around to some of the aviaries to have another look at particularly cool things, and to look for things that I missed the first time around, before exiting the zoo.

So that was Caversham Wildlife Park then. I haven’t described each enclosure in too much detail because I have hyperlinked pictures of most of the enclosures because I think that’s easier and probably better. Hopefully it’s not too monotonous and list-like, but I wanted to do quite a thorough review because there isn’t much about it on ZooChat.

So concluding thoughts then. I really liked Caversham. A lot of their promotional material makes it seem a bit childish because they do publicise the many opportunities you have at the zoo to touch animals, but it is an excellent collection of Australian wildlife. In terms of what I liked about the zoo, as well as the impressive species list, I really liked the way the zoo was laid out with an obvious route to go around that didn’t have the feel of an obvious circle, and I liked the geographical theme which shows how varied Australia is but without sticking to the geographical lay out too religiously so as to compromise the collection (so still having a taxonomic reptile house) so in those ways I thought it was really good.

In terms of the enclosures, they were mostly alright. They were mostly big enough, and generally appropriate for the species held, though in quite a few cases they were a bit small. The other thing about the enclosures is that they are less 'polished' than in a major zoo, for example Perth Zoo that I will be reviewing next. There was a lot of viewing through mesh, and many wooden supported enclosures that were simply mesh fronted just didn’t look as good, and seemed more homemade and cheaper. Obviously that’s fair enough, the zoo probably doesn’t have the money to build big, expensive, fancy enclosures with loads of glass viewing and mock rock and other bits of theming that are not necessary from an animal-keeping point of view but would enhance the zoo for the visitor. I think this should probably be noticeable from the pictures, but I wanted to point it out because it does make a difference between a very good zoo and an excellent zoo.

Nonetheless, I did really like Caversham Wildlife Park very much, and it is most definitely worth a visit.

 

That penguin enclosure is still under construction? They were building it when I was there last November, and it looked almost complete back then!



Hix

 

There was nothing obviously still under construction in that enclosure, though they could still have been working on filtration or something else behind the scenes.
I wonder if the enclosure is actually finished but they have been unable to get penguins?

 

That's cool, thanks for the information. I don't think three would fill the enclosure though.
There was already a Crested Tern in the aviary next to the penguins so maybe it's the same individual that's been moved across.

 

Perth Zoo Review – 6th of July

The next zoo that I visited after Caversham was two days later when I visited Perth Zoo. To start with, in addition to the pictures hyperlinked throughout, there are further pictures in the gallery. I have posted a species list here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/perth-zoo-show-species-list-july-458428/ and here is a map, because I find that it is easier to follow reviews with a map:


At Perth Zoo there were a couple of things that I particularly wanted to see that I knew were not guaranteed sightings because they were often hiding. These were species in the nocturnal house, the Dampier Peninsula Monitor, and the Numbats, and as a result I ended up doing the zoo in a bit of a weird order starting with the nocturnal house which is at the other side of the zoo.

So I got to the zoo at about quarter to ten (the zoo opens at nine) because I wasn’t actually staying in the city itself but in the Perth Hills a little way away. I started by heading straight to the nocturnal house because I wanted to get there for the opening time of the nocturnal house to have the best chance of seeing everything. I passed lots of exhibits on the way of course, but I will talk about those when I get to them properly. So I was at the nocturnal house right when it opened at ten and most of the animals were very active. I did have to go back at the end of the day to see the Red-tailed Phascogales and Western Ringtail Possum, but other than those two I saw absolutely everything in the nocturnal house on my first time around, and the nocturnal house is absolutely fantastic. The enclosures are mostly really spacious and well furnished, even for the medium sized animals like the Northern and Western Quolls. The enclosures for Boobook Owl and Short-eared Rock-wallaby could possibly be considered a bit small but that is nit-picking, and the nocturnal house was absolutely fantastic. As well as the species already mentioned, there was a large variety of mammals as well as a few reptiles and amphibians. The other big highlight, other than species already mentioned, was the Dibbler, but there were Ghost Bats, Water Rats, Leaf-tailed Geckos, Feathertail Gliders and others, so see the species list for more details.

As well as excellent enclosures and diversity of species, there was also good interpretive signage and also taxidermied feral cats and foxes next to the Cane Toads showing the impact of introduced species. The other thing I noticed about the nocturnal house was that it was particularly bright. Generally in nocturnal houses I don’t even bother trying to take pictures of animals because they all come out terribly, but in the Perth Zoo nocturnal house I was able to get pictures of all the animals that stayed relatively still, and the red lighting seemed quite bright to be able to see the animals very easily which was good because so many of the animals were awesome.

Once I had finished with the nocturnal house, the next key thing I wanted to see was the Dampier Peninsula Monitor which is the world’s smallest monitor with a very restricted range in northern Western Australia. The species was only described in 2014, and the individual at Perth is one of very few collected and the only one in captivity, so definitely the most unusual species in the zoo. However, unlike the nocturnal house, there was no particular time to see the monitor because it would either be hiding in the sand or it wouldn't be, and if it wasn’t visible, I would ask a reptile keeper to see if they could help me see the monitor. So rather than rush to the reptile house, I decided to do the stuff on the way first. Coming out of the nocturnal house I started with the Amazonia section. This was just a small circle of exhibits, though all fairly large ones that seemed to be multiple cages joined together going around. Only three species were held here, and those were Golden Lion Tamarin, Common Coati, and Squirrel Monkeys.

After the small Amazonia section, I continued on to the first of the three big geographical sections at Perth zoo – the African Savannah. At the entrance to this section though was a fairly standard enclosure with Galapagos Tortoises, and then I continued past the sign with ‘African Savannah’ written on it and entered the African section. The theming throughout was very thorough. There was lots of mock rock, but relatively well done mock rock, and the planting was very good too with succulents planted around, a row of elephant grass, sausage trees and that sort of thing.

There were also speakers playing African birdsong here and there, and an even more authentic piece of theming were wild Laughing Doves all around. This is an introduced species in Perth that has become extremely common in recent years, but the presence of them was very noticeable in the African Savannah, and I didn’t notice them at all elsewhere in the zoo. In terms of exhibits, they were all very good as well. Of course there weren’t any particularly unusual species, or I should say things I thought of as unusual coming from Europe. And if this was an exhibit in Europe, I would be heavily criticising the lack of small mammals or birds. However for a zoo in Australia with the limited species available I think it wasn’t too bad a selection. In terms of smaller species there were Meerkats, Fennec Fox, Hamadryas Baboon, Guineafowl, and Madagascar Tree Boa and there were also Giraffes, Zebras, Lions, Spotted Hyaenas, Hunting Dogs, and White Rhinos. An antelope of some kind was definitely missing though. In terms of the enclosures themselves, they all seemed to be pretty good. They all seemed to be large enough and appropriate for the species and they were all themed nicely to fit in with the African feel. Viewing was also through glass or completely unobstructed so although none of the species held were hugely interesting for me, I liked the exhibit a lot. I did still spend time looking at the animals of course and watching them use their exhibits to get a better idea of how good they actually are rather than just first reactions of a pretty looking enclosure.

After the African Savannah, I was now back in the area near to the entrance where there is a large area with various things that don’t really fit anywhere else in the zoo. I didn’t actually do this area all at once but instead did the different sides of it when they were on my route around the zoo, and this is the obvious way to do it, but for concision I am going to talk about all of this area at the same time because I felt my Caversham Wildlife Park review got a little bit rambly.

So the area by the entrance is actually quite large and is dominated in the centre by a large lawn and there are things around that lawn. At the time that I was visiting there were lots of big animatronic dinosaurs around here which was a temporary exhibit that I think is gone now. It seemed to be extremely popular with small children though based on the number of children around them and also talking to friends and family who live in Perth and have taken their children to see the dinosaurs. What I thought was quite interesting was that each dinosaur had a sign giving a modern day equivalent of that dinosaur that lives at the zoo (as well as information about the dinosaur) so for example Baryonyx with the Little Blue Penguins being the modern day fish eaters, or the Dilophosauras and the Cotton-top Tamarins as the modern day crested animals. Rather basic I know, but the dinosaurs were obviously aimed at small children. The other sign with the dinosaurs that ties this all in rather nicely is one that says 'Today’s animals share many characteristics with dinosaurs… extinction doesn’t have to be one of them' that I thought was a rather interestingly delivered message.

The other non-animal things around this area are a playground, an educational centre thing called the 'Zoo HQ', a restaurant, picnic site, fairly large playground, and of course the entrance building itself with gift shop, etc. All fairly standard zoo stuff, but all nicely done. There is also a Botanic Walk which on the map is marked as part of the Australia section but isn’t particularly, and it’s a winding pathway through some lush vegetation with a stream and benches dotted around and at that time there were dinosaurs dotted around too.

There were of course animals around there, and coming out of the African Savannah and going around the edge of the lawn, the first are enclosures for Goodfellow’s Tree Kangaroos and Southern Cassowary. These were both rather good enclosures, the Tree Kangaroo being particularly good, and there was a nice rainforesty feel along the path running between these two enclosures. There was also a cassowary chick which was nice to see. The next animal exhibits around were two islands in the middle of a lake, one with White-cheeked Gibbons and one with Black-and-white Ruffed Lemurs. There was viewing to both of the islands from pathways all around the lake, and also with a main viewing platform on the other side of the Cassowary enclosures which also had a window looking into that enclosure.

Each island for the primates was very lushly planted with lots of things to climb around and it seemed that there must have been somewhere in the middle where the primates could escape from view because I didn’t see the lemurs at all, and only saw one gibbon. Also at the main viewing platform was a sign about wild birds that could be seen at the lake including common ducks, pelicans, cormorants, and things like that that you would expect to find. Rather oddly though, the sign also mentioned Black-faced Cormorant which I believe isn’t found in Perth.

The other animal exhibit around this area is a walk-in 'Tropical Birds aviary which seemed to be a random assortment of birds, mostly, but not exclusively, Australian, and mostly species that would be considered tropical, but it also included Mandarin Ducks and Golden Pheasants. The aviary was pretty good though with a big display about deforestation including some signs and a fake chainsaw, and it was lushly decorated with a large water area including koi. There was also a pair of Eclectus Parrots mating in the aviary which a Satin Bowerbird watched intensely.

The next part of the zoo, and the biggest part, was the Australian Bushwalk. The reptile house or 'Reptile Encounter' is the first exhibit here, and although it included a few exotic species (Reticulated Python, Corn Snake, Veiled Chameleon, and a couple of tortoises), it was mostly Australian species. The entrance to the reptile house was through a mock rock fronted building and a bit of a passageway with some pictures of rocky landscapes before entering the reptile house itself. This was a fairly standard reptile house, though all of the enclosures were, I would say, bigger than average for the species held, and with quite a variety of interesting species. The most interesting of course was the Dampier Peninsula Monitor in an enclosure right at the entrance to the reptile house, and rather than buried in the sand like I feared that it may be, it was just sitting on a rock in the open and even moved around quite a bit while I was watching it, including going into the sand for a short period of time. While I was watching it, a volunteer in the reptile house came over to me to say the penguins were being fed in their enclosure nearby and it would be better if I came to the Reptile Encounter later because that is when I could touch a snake. I explained that I was particularly interested in the Dampier Peninsula Monitor, and she really couldn’t understand why I was so interested in this little lizard.

After I had watched the Dampier Peninsula Monitor, I had a proper look around the rest of the reptile house and there were quite a few interesting species around including Pygmy Pythons, Dugites, and lots more (see the species list). As well as the standard, though large and well decorated terrariums lining the walls, there were also a couple of open-topped enclosures in the middle of the room, one for skinks, and one for tortoises, as well as a stage where the reptile show is held, and also a large indoor enclosure for Perenties that is also connected to an outdoor enclosure. Just as I was starting to get towards the end of the reptile house, people started to gather for the reptile show where a keeper takes out a Woma Python to allow people to touch it while giving general reptile information. I stayed long enough just to see what the show was, but at that point the reptile house became too crowded for my liking as all the people left the penguin feeding to go to the reptile show, and I continued on to the next exhibit.

At this point I actually went straight to the Numbat enclosure because I knew I would probably have to make multiple visits to the Numbat enclosure to actually see them, so I wanted to allow for as many visits to the enclosure as possible during the day. That first time I went up and waited for about forty minutes and no Numbats appeared, so I then went all the way back to the reptile house to do the Australian Bushwalk exhibit in a sensible order, so I will continue with the review from there.

The next exhibit after the reptile house in the Australia section is the Penguin Plunge. This is quite a large walkthrough aviary with Little Blue Penguins as well as Bridled Terns. The aviary is very tall, and pretty good and nice looking, with lots of planting and underwater viewing for the penguins, though the area for the penguins was a little bit small as they can only access part of the aviary and most of it isn’t accessible to them. Continuing through the penguin aviary was the next exhibit which is a huge walkthrough Australian Wetland Birds aviary that I though was fantastic and one of the bits of the zoo that I personally liked the most. Between the penguin aviary and the Australian wetland aviary though is a little side room with a few tanks of frogs and a tank for Western Swamp Tortoise. The latter was a species that I was particularly interested in seeing, and there were signs about the conservation work that Perth Zoo does with the species.

After that I continued into the Australian Wetland Aviary itself which is shaped like a huge rectangle with the netting joining on from the penguin exhibit with a very large area of water and a boardwalk going around surrounded with planting of wetland plants with things such as paperbarks. There is quite an impressive variety of species too with everything on the species list going from Brolga to Royal Spoonbill which, as you would see, gives a nice selection of wetland species including waders of varying sizes, a mixture of interesting waterfowl, and two large species as well, and there is lots of space for all of them. I have uploaded quite a few pictures showing the different things in the aviary including deep open water, beaches, shallower areas for the waders, logs, fairly big trees, reeds and grasses and things, and the nice boardwalk going around. That aviary was just the kind of exhibit I really, really like in a zoo.


At the end of the wetland aviary were a few more exhibits. There was a slightly small enclosure for Freshwater Crocodiles, a row of tanks with small fish and invertebrates, and a very large enclosure with several aquatic turtle species, some fish including pretty large ones, and Merten’s Water Monitors. This was by far the largest water area I have ever seen for Merten’s Water Monitors which had an absolutely huge pool with underwater viewing of course, particularly to watch the turtles and fish. I would have loved to see a monitor underwater, and there are pictures of them doing that in the Perth Zoo Gallery, though when I was there they spent the whole time sitting on a log under a heat lamp. There was a land area too of course which seemed small compared to the water area, but I don’t think it was actually too small. I had visited Perth Zoo before when I was much younger, and I have a memory of this enclosure holding Saltwater Crocodiles then. That may be a false memory of course, but that enclosure wouldn’t have been too small for a small Saltwater Crocodile.

Continuing around from here, I next came up to the actual saltwater crocodile exhibit which was nothing too special and basically just a pool surrounded by grass and some vegetation and bits of decorations, however the crocodile in here was absolutely massive.

Still continuing through the Australian Bushwalk section was a little lawn area that then had dinosaurs, followed by a walkthrough aviary of birds of South-western Australia (Purple-crowned Lorikeet to Bush Stone-curlew in the species list). After that I entered the more heavily-themed bit of the Australian Bushwalk.

There was a lot of mock rock and planting and things like that to make it look like the Australian bush which, given the fact that the natural vegetation of the area was all that is needed, was quite effective. The mock rock was better than in some zoos that I have seen and mostly it wasn’t too over-the-top. The first enclosures that I came up to were for Emu, followed by the Dingo enclosure. Both were pretty good aesthetically, the dingo enclosure having lots of mock rock and a few plants, and the Emu enclosure being kind of like a sparse woodland, though for the animals they didn’t seem to be much different from any old enclosures, and the dingo enclosure particularly with big glass windows and lots of quite good rockery must have been fairly expensive compared to any old enclosure.

I then entered the walkthrough kangaroo and wallaby enclosure that holds four species – Red Kangaroo, Western Grey Kangaroo, Tammar Wallaby, and Western Brush-wallaby – and continues with the same thorough theming done with mock rock and native vegetation, including some cool trees that I think are called bottle trees. There weren’t too many kangaroos in there so it felt packed, but enough so that you would have no difficulty seeing them. So I thought it was a particularly good kangaroo walkthrough as far as they go, and definitely a lot better than a field with a couple of trees in it, that kangaroo walkthroughs often are. The kangaroo walkthrough is quite large and takes up most of the area of the Australian Bushwalk, but there are a few other enclosures dotted around along the way. The first was directly on the path going around the kangaroo walkthrough with the Echidna Enclosure. The main enclosure seemed to be pretty good, however all five echindas were huddled in one of the underground 'burrows' with a viewing window to look into them. There were also some signs talking about the successful breeding of echidnas at the zoo.


(a bit of the kangaroo walkthroughwith a particularly large amount of mock rock between the echidnas and Numbats)

After a little bit more through the kangaroo walkthrough was the next enclosure which was down a path that branches off from the side and through a gate which leads to a walkthrough for Quokkas. This enclosure is, of course, smaller than the kangaroo walkthrough but much the same, and within this was the Numbat enclosure.

As mentioned already, I had already been to the enclosure earlier in the day and failed to see the Numbat, but this time I was successful and one numbat was running around hopping up on logs and down again, and feeding from a dish, staying in view for about ten minutes. The Numbat enclosure was a good size and seemed to be generally excellent with lots of logs and plants and places to hide as well as vantage points for the numbats to look around on and space for them to run around. Viewing for visitors is actually unobstructed and from a viewing platform within the numbat enclosure itself, however it would be quite easy to step over the low fence and into the enclosure for any visitor who wanted to, which may not be such a good thing. Aside from that though, the enclosure was absolutely excellent and the Numbat within was awesome too and fantastic to watch. After the Numbat enclosure I went back to the walkthrough kangaroo enclosure to continue around the Australian Bushwalk. The next enclosure around was the one for Tasmanian Devils which seemed to be the standard open-topped series of connected enclosures for Tasmanian Devils that can be seen in most Australian Zoos, though the devils were temporarily off-display due to ‘essential maintenance’ on the exhibit.

After the devils was the Koala Enclosure and rather than the, in my opinion, ugly and very artificial koala exhibits with koalas on structures made up of posts, this enclosure was a circular pit-style enclosure with natural trees for the koalas, and also Western Brush-wallabies on the ground below. I then continued through more of the same kangaroo walkthrough to the final enclosure in the Australian Bushwalk which for Southern Hairy-nosed Wombats, passing an animatronic dinosaur on the way. They were fairly good enclosures that seemed fairly standard, and there was also viewing into the wombat dens through windows, though one wombat walked around giving a nice view.

After this, I had one more big section of the zoo to do, the Asian Rainforest. There isn’t an obvious round route to do this bit, but I started from the bit near the nocturnal house so I could have a look for the species I missed from there at the start of the day, and I was successful in seeing the ones that I missed the first time, though many that I saw easily in the morning were nowhere to be seen on the second visit. I also started on this side because there was one small section of the zoo, in addition to the Asian Rainforest, that I hadn’t seen yet which was the Primates Section. The enclosures around here were all in a similar style with mesh fronted cages, but of course different sizes and decorated differently for the different species held. Though this area wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as most of the rest of the zoo, the enclosures were all good for the species held, and the area was quite lushly planted with lots of big trees giving a nice feel to the place.

None of the species held here were unusual for me, being used to the diversity of exotic species held in Europe, but there were six species of primates held here - Cotton-top Tamarin, Pygmy Marmoset, Emperor Tamarin, Black-capped Capuchin, Ring-tailed Lemur, and Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur so it was a nice little collection.

I then continued through to the Asian Rainforest, and the first exhibit I came up to was the one for orangutans. There was a large viewing area overlooking the orangutan exhibit with lots of educational, interpretive signage however the enclosure itself was a little odd. It is comprised of lots of little sections separated by big concrete walls, and in each section are tall things (I don’t know how better to describe them) that the orangutans can climb up on and sit in with, ropes and things connecting them allowing the orangutans to go between them.

There was lots for the orangs to climb around on, and places for them to sit quite high up as well as ground space. There were also a couple of big fig trees around, and apparently they have recently been given access to those trees allowing them to use them. I did spend a while watching the orangs in their exhibit, I don’t usually pay much attention to apes in zoos but with such an odd enclosure I wanted to see how they used it and it seemed to be quite good… I think? It was a very different, and I must say rather interesting design.

After the orangutans, I came up to a cage holding Javan Gibbons which seemed big enough, though not particularly unusual or interesting, or particularly nice looking. The next enclosure after that was one for the bull elephant which wasn’t particularly unusual but would match the standard of a good elephant exhibit anywhere I think. But to be honest, I generally don’t pay that much attention to elephants in zoos.

And I then had a choice of which way to go (as is obvious from the map) and I would have to double back to see both bits. So I started by heading up towards the Sun Bear, and throughout the Asian Rainforest section it was shady with lots of big trees, and the theming was fairly subtle just in the style of the viewing areas with some thatched roofs and things and the decorations in the enclosures. Of course any exhibit trying to be themed to something as broad as 'Asia' isn’t really going to succeed in being completely authentic, and they weren’t all rainforest animals so that wasn’t accurate either, but it was still quite nice.

(a general view in the Asian Rainforest)

So I continued up to the sun bear enclosure, passing a tank for Red-eared Sliders on the way. There was a big viewing hut at the Sun Bear Enclosure with viewing through big glass panels, and signs about how they were rescued bears. The enclosure itself seemed fairly good, though not excellent, however I couldn’t see it in use because the only bear visible was sleeping in a log at the back. Along from the Sun Bears was a little area with four enclosures clustered around. There was a fairly large cage-style enclosure for White-cheeked Gibbons with lots of climbing things around, and the viewing deck was actually raised to a glass panel about halfway up the enclosure. Next to this was a typical tree for Red Pandas, and opposite were two further enclosures for Komodo Dragons and Asian Small-clawed Otters. Both had indoor and outdoor sections and the Komodo Dragon was staying in its indoor bit. The otter enclosure of course had a pond as well as trees and logs and things, and both it and the Komodo Dragon enclosures were fairly good. Everything around here was themed to go with the Asian Rainforest, including the dragon and panda enclosures, despite the fact that being a rainforest isn’t particularly accurate for either species.

I then continued further along the same path leading to the Australia section because although no species are marked on the map for here, I wanted to see it all anyway. There weren’t actually animal exhibits here, however there were lots of signs along the pathway about the different breeding programmes that Perth Zoo has because the pathway ran along the fence separating the off show breeding areas, and tops of greenhouse-looking buildings were visible over the fence. This pathway joined up to the Australia section, but I had already looked at all of that thoroughly so I headed back down the same path to do the other part of the Asian Rainforest.

There were actually only two animal exhibits on this pathway, but each covered a very large area. On one side was the Asian Elephant exhibit with a large seating area (the Amphitheatre) viewing the exhibit and viewing to it all along the pathway. It seemed to be a pretty good exhibit with several yards and enrichment items for the elephants like tyres, buckets, trees, pools, and a big pile of dirt, and the barn seemed to be pretty big. Along the pathway was lots of tropical vegetation continuing the rainforest theme, and unexpectedly for me while I was looking at the elephants in their enclosure, one elephant came walking along the path led by the keepers in one of the elephants’ daily walks around the zoo. This was the second time I had seen elephants being walked around a zoo after Whipsnade in the UK, but unlike Whipsnade which has loads of open space, this elephant walk was along a fairly narrow tree-lined path. Narrow enough that people had to stand off the path to let the elephant go through, so I saw the elephant very close. I’m surprised it’s not too dangerous to do this though.

On the other side of the pathway are the Sumatran Tiger enclosures. There are two circular viewing areas looking into tiger enclosures all around, and they seemed to be pretty good enclosures and not particularly unusual but they weren’t the best I have seen or anything like that. I must say I didn’t spend a huge amount of time looking at the tigers and observing the enclosures though. One other thing worth noting from along this path was the 'Bukit Station' which is a hut decorated to fit in with the 'Asian Rainforest' theme with various bits of educational signage, and a room where a film was playing.

So that is pretty much it for the zoo. After that I headed out and towards the exit, briefly looking at things along the way. One other thing at this time is that for the last half an hour that I was at the zoo the sky started to completely cloud up, and it began to look worryingly like it was about to rain, and a couple of minutes before I reached the exit a little bit of very light rain started to fall, and about thirty seconds before I got to the exit it started to rain properly. So I finished the zoo exactly in time!

So I don’t have very much more to add about Perth Zoo that I haven’t already said, but I thought it was excellent. There weren’t quite as many species as there could have been, and I would have liked there to have been more little bits and pieces dotted around, but everything that they had was done to an exceptional standard.

 

Nice review Laughing Dove. Apart from the dinosaurs, pretty much the same as when I visited a year ago.

http://www.zoochat.com/24/perth-zoo-visits-august-2015-a-423556/

And I've just realised I've got more photos from another visit in November I haven't posted yet!



Hix

 

Brilliant reviews of Caversham and Perth LD, I haven't been to WA yet, but want to even more now! Several of the species at these two zoos are South-West endemics and rare in the rest of Australia, certainly I haven't seen a number of the species listed.

Caversham seems quite unusual in many respects. The interaction "show" area is unique I think, and the biogeographical layout is very rare in native wildlife parks in Australia. Interesting to see they have red foxes, they certainly seem a lot more showy than any I have previously seen - I wonder if they were hand-raised?

Perth looks like a very nice zoo, especially the established plantings. The WA endemic species are particularly appealing here. The lack of antelope is typical of urban Australian zoos - Adelaide and Melbourne also lack bovids, although Taronga maintains Barbary sheep, tahr and bongo. I'm always surprised that Dromedaries aren't used as fillers more often in these areas, where space permits.

 

Thanks. I certainly enjoyed both zoos very much.

Caversham certainly was very unusual, and I have never seen or heard of anything quite like that show anywhere else.
I don't think the foxes were being particularly showy out of choice, and they were actually quite hidden behind a rock, though they could clearly be seen through one specific gap in the rockwork which is where that picture was taken from. I seems I didn't upload a picture of the enclosure itself but I have attached a picture to this post, and the foxes were behind the pile of rocks on the back right of the enclosure (near where that little plant is). I don't think there was a den or anything like that where the foxes could go to to be completely hidden.

What I think would be good would be a compatible savannah antelope in with the giraffes and zebras. Though I'm not sure if any possible species for that would be available in Australia.

 

AQWA Review – 10th of July

The next zoo that I visited was AQWA, the Aquarium of Western Australia which is located in Hillarys Boat Harbour in the town/suburb of Hillarys which is quite a way north of Perth. It's not a huge aquarium, but has a wide range of species and exhibits from across Western Australia. Pictures have been uploaded to the AQWA Gallery, however I will not be posting a species list this time because as is often the case with aquariums, a lot of stuff was unsigned so I could post a list of signed species, but that wouldn’t be complete or particularly accurate.
Here is a map of AQWA, uploaded by Hix.

From the outside the aquarium was quite a large building

located right on the coastline. Just inside the entrance to the aquarium is a row of five small tanks, each representing the one of the different geographical sections that the aquarium is divided into, with each representing a different part of the Western Australian coastline separated by latitude.

These different sections are the Perth Coast, Shipwreck Coast, Great Southern Coast, Far North Coast, and Coral Coast. The aquarium also has two sections that are not geographical which are the Danger Zone and an outdoor area.

Looking at the arrows on the map, it seems like you are supposed to start with the Great Southern Coast which would give a route heading north along the WA coastline, however I missed this, and the first section that I went to was the Perth Coast. This, as the name suggests, has a variety of tanks with species found along the coastline near Perth, and each tank is named as a different area around Perth such as Scarborough, Rottnest Island, Cockburn Sound, etc. There was a variety of interesting fish around here, as well as a very large unsigned cuttlefish, a few tanks with jellyfish, and a tank with Spiny Lobsters, though these were simply signed as 'crayfish'. Though many of the fish in the tanks were unsigned, the main species in each tank were signed and included species like Gobbleguts, Black-headed Puller, Boxfish, Moon Wrasse, Rough Bullseye, etc. and some of the corals were signed as well. In addition to the cuttlefish, another particularly interesting cephalopod that was signed this time was a Gloomy Octopus. Though the Perth Coast section certainly was interesting, and I thought it was good that an aquarium in Perth had a good representation of the local marine life, there weren’t so many big key species here. The tanks here were all quite good, and many were nice looking ones that were fairly large.

After looking at all of the tanks there, I continued through to the Far North Coast. In the centre of this section was a large circular open-topped reef tank with a variety of species, however around the aquarium were lots of signs and activity sheets about finding 'Dory' somewhere in the aquarium and this tank was where 'Dory' could be found with a sign prominently announcing this. This promotion was obviously done to tie in with the Finding Dory film and it seemed to be quite popular based on how many people were around that tank. Also in the Far North section was another open-topped tank. This was much larger with a few different large butterflyfish species, as well as rays, a Longhorned Cowfish, and a few other things.

Also in the Far North Section was a typical reef tank called the Mermaid Reef with different reef-building corals, as well as a rather small and in my opinion quite ugly enclosure for two young saltwater crocodiles. The final thing in this section was a display along one wall called 'Creatures Up Close' with lots of small tanks and magnifying glasses that could be moved over to look at them. Species held in these tanks included moray eels, clownfish, anemones, seahorses, and very interesting looking Daisy Corals.

The next section I went to was the rather interesting sounding 'Danger Zone' which, as you would guess, is devoted to different dangerous species from around Western Australia.

The first tank in here was a very small tank for a rather big and pregnant Shark Bay Sea Snake. The snake was very cool to see, though the tank that it was in was very small for it, particularly as the snake was swimming around constantly and quite quickly and the snake was probably at least half as long again as the tank. The sign here was also a bit disappointing because it only gave general sea snake information and didn't even identify this as anything more than 'sea snake'. The other dangerous species in the Danger Zone were Cone Shells, Lionfish, Toadfish, Stonefish, Pufferfish and, most interestingly, Blue-ringed Octopus. At first the octopus was buried in the sand behind its rock, though when I went to look at the enclosure again, it was a bit more exposed. Aside from the sea snake enclosure, most of the enclosures in this section seemed acceptably sized, though none were particularly large.

I then exited the Danger Zone and entered the outdoor area of the aquarium. The first part of the outdoor area is called the Marmion Marine Park and the first exhibit here is called the Discovery Pool which was a large touch tank with various starfish that could be touched, and small fish that couldn’t. There were also a couple of traffic cone looking things that were to give views underwater. There was a keeper on duty here stopping visitors from harming the starfish or lifting them out of the water, though it seems that she was having quite a difficult job of it because people were constantly picking up starfish and as soon as they were told to put them back, the starfish were just dropped into the water and several other people would also have picked starfish out of the water. It didn’t seem like the keeper or the starfish were having a particularly relaxing time around here. The other exhibit opposite from the touch pool was the Marine ARC (Animal Rehabilitation Centre) which was two small pools with rescue animals in them.


One of the pools had a variety of rays and sharks with the species signed being Blue-spotted Rays, Port Jackson Sharks, Eagle Rays, and Smooth Rays. In the other pool was an even more interesting animal – a Flatback Turtle. This was flapping against the wall and obviously didn’t have enough space to swim around, and both pools would be absolutely awful as permanent exhibits, but I doubt any animal would stay in here for more than a few months and it may be better for them to have a small pool for rehab. The size of the enclosure aside, it was really cool to see a Flatback Turtle, and that was one of the species I was most keen to see at AQWA. There was also lots of signage around about how this was a rehabilitation pool and also a turtle identification key to allow visitors to identify what species of turtle was in there at that time. There was also a little window at the back looking into the filtration.

The next enclosure around was the Coral Reef and also around this area were nice views across the ocean with lots of Silver Gulls flying around. The coral reef was a large tank that was open at the top and also had underwater viewing from below. Inside was a large variety and large number of different reef fish, though there were no particularly large species in here despite it being a pretty big tank at 450000 litres. Also in here was a diver cleaning the tank, and there were lots of signs and different displays of all sorts of things in the viewing area around the underwater viewing. One particularly interesting sign near here had a diagram of the different tanks and water supply systems to those tanks that gave information about the heating systems, storage tanks, volumes of different bits, flow rates, and all that kind of interesting stuff.


(a general view in the outdoor area)

The final thing in the outdoor area was actually under refurbishment, but I went over to look at the construction site and the information about the development anyway. This section was Stingray Bay and was connected to the rest of the outdoor area by a walkway over a road. It was just a construction site at the time with the basic frame up, though there was a graphic of what the development will look like with a playground and a large stingray tank and also information about the development.

Now that I was done with the outdoor area, I had to head back through the aquarium to do the last bit that I should have done at the start of my visit, but missed off which were the Great Southern Coast and Shipwreck Coast sections. The Great Southern Coast wasn’t very large and just felt like stuff on the way to the Shipwreck Coast. There were a few interesting tanks though. One had a mixture of different smaller fish and a Port Jackson Shark, another had a large school of medium sized black-and-white stripey fish (very scientific, I know, but they were not signed and I’m terrible with identifying all but the most common and obvious marine fish), another contained many pineapplefish, and finally was the largest tank in the section with leafy and weedy sea dragons which are just really awesome.

Towards the end of the Great Southern Coast was a display of shark jaws as well as a model shark and bits of shipwreck hanging from the ceiling and a sign signalling the entrance to the Shipwreck Coast. This was the final part of the aquarium that I visited, and is the main shark tank with a tunnel going around it.

I went around a few times because it was quite big and I wanted to make sure I saw everything and somehow an absolutely massive Loggerhead Turtle managed to hide until my fourth and final time going around. I also stayed around here for the keeper talk which was very useful because it gave information on the different species in there, particularly the sharks, including an unsigned Spinner Shark with information how to tell it apart from the Sandbar Whalers. I did notice though that the keeper who gave the shark talk was the same as the one defending the starfish at the touch pool, so I hope someone replaced her up there because otherwise I imagine people would have been hurling starfish across the aquarium! At the keeper talk I was also given information about the tank and was told that the turtle was often difficult to see despite being huge, and she also pointed out a Wobbegong Shark on the ground next to the front viewing window.

Anyway, back to the tank itself. It was quite large, apparently three million litres and apparently 'Australia’s largest single aquarium' with quite a long tunnel going around it, half of which was taken up by a slow conveyor belt to carry people around, though there was also a bit of normal floor to allow people who wanted to stand to do so. There were lots of fairly large fish in the tank as well as quite a few sharks and rays. Though there was only signage for a few select species, the keeper doing the talk there said there were three species of ray in the tank – Smooth, Eagle, and Shovelnose – and six species of shark – Spinner, Sandbar Whaler, Grey Nurse, Wobbegong, Port Jackson, and Bamboo. There were large numbers of all of the rays including some huge Smooth Rays, and the most prominent of the shark species were the Sandbar Whalers because they were active and there were quite a few of them, though the Grey Nurse Sharks were staying fairly still in one area of the tank next to the tunnel, and the ground dwelling sharks could be seen if looking carefully on the ground.

The Spinner Shark was a bit more difficult to locate though, and I also struggled to tell it apart from the whalers. Though the keeper pointed out that it was the one shark that would swim near the surface with a 'torpedo shape' and was distinctive because of black tips on the fins. Their individual was about a metre long and once I knew to look out for the fins, I could see it swimming very quickly around the tank near the surface, which made photography quite difficult, but I did try.

And once I had looked around that tank, I had finished seeing everything in AQWA. I then exited the aquarium through the café and the gift shop where, unlike at Perth and Caversham, I was able to get a souvenir guidebook which I always buy from zoos if they are available. Generally, I thought it was a pretty good aquarium. There were quite a few great tanks, and lots of interesting species as well as some slightly more unusual things like the marine wildlife rescue pools. Many of the enclosures weren’t great though, and though the general informational signage was alright, the signage identifying the species in the different tanks was terrible. I did rather like the layout of the aquarium with the different sections of the WA coast, and I thought the name 'AQWA' was really rather good. It’s an acronym as well as sounding like 'aquarium' making it obvious what it is. Overall, despite its faults, I still quite liked AQWA and enjoyed my visit.

 

Thanks for the enclosure photo, that looks like a decent enclosure, although definitely with little privacy. In my experience, red foxes are very rare in Australian zoos, I have only previously seen them at Australia Zoo (but they no longer have them), but perhaps they are more commonly held in the smaller wildlife parks that I visit less commonly. Caversham is actually the only ZAA zoo to display the species.

There really aren't any suitable small African antelope species left in Australia, certainly no gazelles. However, I think there are plans to get a smaller species into Australia for the purpose of adding to savannah exhibits, but I don't know when this will happen.

 

Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre Review – 12th of July

The next zoo that I visited is a much smaller place called the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre (formerly just the Armadale Reptile Centre) which is in the City of Armadale, south east of Perth. It is actually located very near to the next two places I will be writing about in this thread, the Cohunu Koala Park, and Wungong Dam (a birding site) and the three could very easily be done together if you wanted to (though I did them on three separate trips because they aren’t too far from where I stayed in Perth).

The Reptile and Wildlife Centre is a very small place with mostly very cheaply built enclosures. As well as being a zoo open to visitors, it also functions as a rescue and rehabilitation centre for native wildlife. The collection is surprisingly large for the size of the zoo, and a species list can be seen here: http://www.zoochat.com/24/armadale-reptile-wildlife-centre-show-species-459153/ with a particularly impressive reptile collection, as well as a few unusual bird species, and have uploaded quite a few pictures to the Armadale Reptile & Wildlife Centre Gallery. As far as a I know, there is no map of the place, but it is very small anyway, and is divided up into three sections. A first small outdoor area, a large indoor area which contains most of the reptile collection (what I have called the 'reptile barn' in the titles of the pictures), and then a much larger outdoor area at the back, with a one-way set of walkthrough aviaries connecting the larger outdoor area to the smaller first outdoor area.

The zoo isn’t particularly noticeable from the road apart from a sign advertising its presence off a highway, and from the car park it is still not so obviously a zoo apart from a faded sign saying 'Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre' with a few pictures of reptiles and information about calling the Wildcare Helpline for sick and injured wildlife. The zoo itself is on the other side of a chain link fence from the car park and from there it is obvious that it is a zoo. The first enclosure is a fairly nice aviary with a variety of small birds including several waxbill species, King and Stubble Quail, Peaceful Doves, and Bourke’s and Scarlet-chested Parrots (everything up to the Bourke’s Parrot on the bird section of the species list).

It wasn’t a particularly fancy aviary but seemed good enough, and I was told by a keeper that pairs of several of the waxbill species had chicks in the nest boxes.

Next to this large aviary were two much smaller and much less nice aviaries. The first was for a single Long-billed Corella which was obviously very much a pet saying 'hello' and being friendly (though a sign warned that it would bite) in a typical pet parrot cage with toys and things but of course unacceptably small. Next to this was an even smaller cage with two Tawny Frogmouths that just had a perch. A terrible enclosure of course, but there were two much larger aviaries for Tawny Frogmouths in other parts of the zoo so I suspect these were temporarily removed from those aviaries for some reason or rescue animals that had recently been brought in. I didn’t have the opportunity to confirm that with a keeper though, so I will reserve judgement on those. At this point I bought a ticket from the counter just inside the main reptile barn before continuing with the exhibits in this first outdoor area.

Along the side of the reptile building was a small seating area of tables and chairs, and the exit to a walkthrough aviary that was one-way with the entrance on the other side. Most of this side however was taken up by a path running away from the building with enclosures on either side.

(a view from near the end of this path looking back to the main building) On the left (right in the embedded picture above because it was taken facing the other way) were several aviaries with various birds, mostly native to the area, and mostly rescues , in many cases of common species that don't seem to be usually kept in zoos (Magpie-lark, Common Bronzewing, etc.). They were mostly larger species ranging from about the smallest species being a Laughing Dove to some large Baudin’s Black Cockatoos and other large parrots. The species list held in this row of aviaries is everything in the bird section of the species list from Tawny Frogmouth to Eclectus. Most of the aviaries here were just about large enough, though none were particularly big and they all had a very similar appearance with a sandy floor and a few large sticks as perches.

On the opposite side of the path, most of the space was taken up by an enclosure for two Dingoes. The sides of the enclosure were chain link fence and inside the enclosure was a fairly ugly looking rock structure allowing the Dingoes to sit inside as well as on top as well as a couple of trees including one very big Eucalyptus providing shade for most of the enclosure which wasn't huge. It is also worth noting that both of these Dingoes are rescues and would otherwise have been euthanised after being abandoned. Also on the same side of the path as the Dingo enclosure was one aviary separate from the row of aviaries on the other side was a larger aviary with a large number (at least eight) of Boobook Owls are also rescued animals.

After looking at this first outdoor area, I then continued through to the indoor area

where most of the zoo’s reptile collection is kept as well as containing a small gift shop. The reptile enclosures in this building are mostly standard glass-fronted terrariums, though generally on the larger end for their inhabitants and they are arranged in rows, filling the building with quite a high density of enclosures. As well as there being quite a large number of species in here with 51 species held (all of the reptiles except the large monitors and crocodile), there were many species held in multiple enclosures such as Oblong Turtles, Bobtails, and South-western Carpet Pythons (all species that they are likely to get lots of rescues of). As you would guess with a place that is also a rescue centre, a lot of the species held were species native to the local area leading there to be a large number of unusual South-western Australian species like the four species of Legless Lizards, Crowned Snake, Dugite, and the particularly unusual Bardick, amongst others. As well as a variety of reptiles in terrariums dotted around, there were a few other things worth noting in this large building. These were a fish tank with a few tropical fish, a few enclosures with amphibians, some quite nice open-topped enclosures for Bobtail Skinks and Blue-tongued Skink, an open-topped pond with several turtle species and an Eastern Water Dragon, and, rather interestingly, a small nocturnal house with some small reptiles such as geckos and a, so far unidentified, frog species.
I won’t go into detail for each enclosure in this reptile house because there were just two many of them, but I have uploaded pictures of a sample of enclosures to the gallery, and have also uploaded pictures of a few of the inhabitants of the enclosures.

I then continued out of the indoor area to the main outdoor section that takes up most of the area of the zoo. The first bit of the outdoor area is a large lawn with enclosures all around it.

On one side are two paddocks for domestic donkeys and ponies with two very friendly individuals of each, as well as an area behind those that is part of the zoo’s land but is currently unused. The other sides of the lawn have more interesting species however. There is quite a nice outdoor pond for Oblong Turtles, as well as several enclosures for several monitor species (Perentie, Gould’s Sand Monitor, Rosenberg’s Monitor, and Lace Monitor). There are larger enclosures for the larger monitors with the adult Lace Monitors and Perentie getting particularly large enclosures (compared to the others, but no bigger than would be expected in a major zoo). There is also a row of slightly smaller circular enclosures that are partially shaded for a rescued Gould’s Sand Monitor that is missing a limb. as well as smaller individuals of the other monitors, and for larger individuals of some of the skinks that are also held inside. These monitor enclosures all seemed very nice with lots of logs and some vegetation allowing the monitors to hide, and didn’t seem too small. On the same side as the monitors though was an enclosure that did seem too small that was for a Saltwater Crocodile.

Around this same area of lawn were two further enclosures with non-reptilian inhabitants. One was for a Common Wombat that seemed like it was too small, though I didn’t see the wombat use the enclosure as it was sleeping in its indoor area but visible through glass, and the second was an aviary with Australian Bustards shared with Barn Owls which seemed to be quite good. (Note: There is a second aviary not visible in the linked picture that is connected to the one shown that the bustards can access)

Around the other side of the row of monitor enclosures was a continuation of this outdoor area

with a row of grass and some picnic tables and an enclosure with Red and Grey Kangaroos, Common Wallaroos, and Emus. Not a huge enclosure or a particularly nice looking one, but I didn’t think it was terrible, and next to that enclosure was a nice large aviary housing a Wedge-tailed Eagle along with some Australian Magpies and a Pied Butcherbird.

From here was the entrance to the walkthrough aviary that I mentioned earlier that leads back around to the other outdoor area near the entrance of the zoo. Rather than being one large walkthrough aviary, it is separated into a few smaller sections. The first section held two Nankeen Kestrels, a Grey Butcherbird, and two Laughing Kookaburras and wasn’t huge but wasn’t too bad. The next section wasn’t actually a walkthrough, and had mesh separating the visitor path (which runs along one side of the aviary) from the animal area, With the species in this section being Tawny Frogmouth, Common Brushtail Possum, and Grey-headed Flying-fox. The latter of which was signed as Black Flying Fox (and this was in fact the only part of the walkthrough aviary that was signed).

I then entered the final section of the walkthrough aviary which had the most interesting bird species, and was also the largest section.

A low rope fence separated the visitor pathway from the rest of the aviary which seemed to discourage the single Australian Bustard that was in here from going into the visitor area, and I wondered if there was a possible safety hazard about having it in here. There were a few smaller birds in this aviary too though, and as I mentioned nothing was signed so I made sure to see everything. Species in here were Common Bronzewing, Princess Parrot, Grey Butcherbird, Cockatiel, and most interestingly both Sacred and Red-rumped Kingfishers, and Dusky and Black-faced Woodswallows, as well as the aforementioned Australian Bustard. With the latter four species all being found locally and there being only one individual of each (except the Dusky Woodswallow which there were two of), I think they were probably rescued birds.

I exited this section back next to the Dingo enclosure, and that was the end of my visit to the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre.

So overall thoughts then. There aren’t really any particularly fancy enclosures, and most of the enclosures are on the small side with some that are just too small. A few of the enclosures are fairly good though, and there is a wide range of unusual species. When considering the collection though, one needs to remember that it is a rescue centre so there are many rescued animals. Despite its faults, I really liked the Armadale Reptile and Wildlife Centre, and it is definitely worth a visit.