Hi, apologies if this has been asked and answered before, but can anyone tell me where the largest walk through aviaries are in the UK? I have been to the one in Chester Zoo, which was really awesome, and had a lot of interesting birds, I am now looking for similar exhibits. I would rather see non-parrot specific aviaries, not because I dont like them (I do), but I have been to several zoos with just parrots already. Ideally I would be looking to see the smaller colourful birds from south america, like the Mot Mot (not sure if thats possible). I live in Bedfordshire, but am always ready to travel! Kind regards & thanks.
and a related (sort of the same) question: what is the very largest aviary in the UK? Is it the Snowdon aviary at London?
Two things about your question: 1) Does it have to be an aviary in the traditional sense? If not, the Tropical Realm at Chester would be my guess. 2) Does it have to be walkthrough? I think Europe on the Edge at Chester is up there, but not sure if it's the largest?
Main area of Living Coasts may beat both? Certainly one of my favourite walk-through aviaries in the UK.
1) yes, I mean an actual aviary, not including tropical houses (so, outdoors and meshed). 2) no, whatever the largest aviary is, walk-through or not (I just assumed the largest would be a walk-through). The two largest UK aviaries I could think of were the Chester one and the London one, but apparently (from googling) Chester's is "one of the largest" in the UK which implies there is one or more that are larger. Googling "largest aviary UK" mostly brought up Snowdon and Chester but didn't give me an actual answer that I could find easily.
I'm not sure how to compare these statistics, but I found the size of Living Coasts as 62ft high and 1.8 million cubic feet in space; Snowdon aviary is 80ft high, 150ft long and 63ft wide. I couldn't find a size for Chester's one.
I was after something I could really walk through, only because I like to take photos - trying to get them behind wire isnt great, especially when you are often separated between two obstacles. I like the look of the Living Coasts - I havent ever tried photographing puffins, but always wanted too. I did see something called The Living Rainforest, which might be worth a look - dont know if anyone has been? Explore | The Living Rainforest I should say, I have been to the Snowdon Aviary in London, and whilst it was pretty good, I didnt like it as much as the one in Chester, which I thought had more interesting birds. I also liked the Weaver birds at Chester - they were quite amazing.
I wouldn't go out of your way to visit The Living Rainforest, You'd be hard pressed to spend half an hour there, and i thought you weren't interested in indoor tropical houses.
Tsavo aviary at Chester has a floor area of 30 x 45 metres = 1350 square metres. Maximum height is 10 metres.
Shame about the The Living Rainforest, I was hoping that might be quite good - but thank you for the heads up!! I dont mind tropical houses, that was Chlidonias that wanted specific conventional aviaries. I dont think a lot of South American birds would do well in the latter environment - too cold here! The Chester one was perfect, but i've done it & would like to try something different - if of course anything exists.
yes that was me discounting tropical houses (but only because I was wondering about the largest actual aviary; I love tropical houses otherwise!)
this will seem like a stupid question to you guys, but is Living Coasts part of Paignton Zoo? Or is it an entirely separate place, or owned by the same company? I've got a bit confused I think. And is it Paignton that has the walk-through Desert House? EDIT: I looked at a map, and I see Living Coasts is in Torquay up the coast a bit from Paignton but quite close....maybe that's why I'm associating the two?
Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust owns three zoos in the south west of England (Paignton Zoo and Living Coasts in Torbay). They also own Newquay Zoo which is further south west in Cornwall, so you usually see entry fee offers and advertising linking Paignton and Living Coasts together.
Whitley also own a handful of nature reserves, including a Site of Special Scientific Interest at Slapton Ley. And yes, it is Paignton with the Desert House - sadly looking rather depleted when I was last there (though this was three years or so ago now - I'm overdue a South-west trip!). One possible contribution to the confusion, incidentally, is that all Living Coasts' ISIS records are/were lumped in with Paignton.
Has anyone been to this place? it doesnt look too big, but then it's hard to tell from the web site.. Walk through Aviary | Perching Birds | Norfolk Wildlife Park | Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens | Yarmouth | Norfolk
thanks Pootle and Maguari. I'm still not sure of why I link them, but it may have been due to the connected advertising I guess.
They are very closely linked, so it's not surprising. At the time Living Coasts was announced, Paignton was the only Whitley zoo, so Living Coasts was very much 'Paignton's new site' (Newquay was acquired later).
It's not a big place, but an interesting one with a very pleasant setting and an almost-exclusively Asian animal collection. (for some reason East Anglia particularly attracts geographically-specialist collections - like Africa Alive and Amazona Zoo (Africa and South America respectively) or the now-closed Kilverstone (South America) and Norfolk Wildlife Park (Europe). Just an odd aside!) There are pictures in the gallery here: Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens Gallery
Odd to think it's 20 years since Kilverstone closed - a shame, as it held a number of unusual species the like of which we're unlikely to see in Europe again anytime soon, for instance olingos and colocolo.
I seem to recall that the walk-through African aviary at Lotherton Hall was a decent size. Not necessarily the largest in the country, though.
