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Zooboy28 in Australia

Discussion in 'Australia' started by zooboy28, 25 Mar 2013.

  1. nanoboy

    nanoboy Well-Known Member

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    This looks like a lot of fun.

    Two websites that I use to buy books are: bookdepository and fishpond. Their prices are comparable, and shipping is free. Not surprisingly, delivery takes forever.
     
  2. Chlidonias

    Chlidonias Moderator Staff Member 15+ year member

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    choice of Australian field guides creates bitter disputes in the birding community!! Personally I use Slater all the time. I have the others as well, but I only take Slater with me when I travel. Of course I'm already aware of its shortcomings so I can take those into account, which a beginner birder cannot.
     
  3. Hix

    Hix Wildlife Enthusiast and Lover of Islands 15+ year member Premium Member

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    I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Pizzey man from way back.

    Another good place to by bird books is from AndrewIsles.com.au, but they are based in Melbourbne and you can visit their shop to save on delivery.

    :p

    Hix
     
  4. Steve Robinson

    Steve Robinson Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I agree - you can't beat Graham Pizzey for all the right info in a volume that fits well into a backpack.
     
  5. boof

    boof Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    another vote for pizzey and knight.
     
  6. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Day Forty-two

    I can’t believe it’s been 42 days since I arrived in Australia, and that I haven’t visited a zoo for the last four weeks. Massive withdrawal symptoms. :D This is mostly a result of being broke, so today’s zoo outing was going to be especially budget. As such, we got up at 6.30am, made a packed lunch, and managed to utilise public transport all the way to our destination. The great thing about Melbourne’s public transport is that it only costs $3.50 per person per weekend day, no matter how far you go. It costs lots more during the week. We saved even more money by getting into the zoo for free, it being Melbourne Zoo, which we have memberships for. We arrived just before 9am, and the doors rolled open shortly after 9am (not at 9am...) and we were first in.

    And we set straight off for the macaw aviary to try and see the curassow, but no joy there. From there to the Australian section, where we got good views of the platypus and almost everything else, including the wombats and devils, and saw several birds I’d missed on my last visit. Signage, especially for birds, is terrible in this zoo, I think every single mixed species aviary had un-signed species in it. We then set off back to the macaw aviary, and (very excitingly) saw the Razor-billed Curassow! It, of course, doesn’t have a sign identifying it, so I had to explain to the innocent bystanders why I was so excited. There is a sign for Buffon’s Macaw on that aviary too, are there any in there though?

    My main aim was to see the species I’d missed on my previous visit, and I managed to see most of these, including all the reptile house species, and almost all of the frogs. I also saw a couple of additional species in the rainforest aviaries, and a number of wild birds, including Nankeen Night Herons by the Orang-Utans. I really like the elephant and orang areas, they are very well done. The Orang viewing hut has a “zoopermarket” at the back, which is absolutely brilliant, as it allows you to scan goods and then tells you whether or not they contain palm oil. Excellent interactive education! I also managed to find an elephant research hut that I must have missed last time; this has a few terrariums for native reptiles and insects, as well as a few interesting skulls and posters from Thai zoos.

    The rest of the zoo was good too, but very busy. I counted 16 Coati, I hope they share these around a bit more soon; they’re such a great species. I saw the Persian Leopard lying in the sun, I hadn’t been able to find it last time. There was a wombat in one of the small pens by the bear enclosure, adjacent to the agouti, but I’m not sure which species this is, will post a photo for ID soon. No sign of Mara yet.

    I saw 23 species I’d missed last time. However, apart from the Mara, I think I’ve seen every mammal and reptile species on display (i.e. with a sign) at the Melbourne Zoo, and almost all the frogs. Still got a few birds to go. I had a look at their census though, and they have so many species off-display (some for education) or potentially unlabelled in mixed species exhibits. In total, six amphibians, sixteen reptiles, 41 birds and seventeen mammals. Where do they keep them all! And how do I get in to see them?

    I’m still not sure how much I like Melbourne Zoo, some parts are great, some parts are far from great, and the general feeling I get when visiting is not “wow”. I enjoyed it more this time, as I knew what to expect, and where to spend time. I guess its growing on me, but I’m not going to claim it as my “home zoo” just yet.

    New Species: Crucifix Toad, Striped Legless Lizard, Carolina Box Turtle, Razor-billed Curassow, Eastern Whipbird, Hooded Robin, Southern Squatter Pigeon.
     
  7. PAT

    PAT Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Trust me it will grow on you. I remember visiting zoos in Europe and thinking Melbourne Zoo does this so much better a lot of the time. It isn't perfect but it is still the only medium sized zoo that I've visited that doesn't have anything in dire need of attention.

    I think the wombat near the bears is a common wombat. I haven't seen it in a while but if it was noticeably bigger than the southern hairy-nosed wombats in the Australian section then it's probably the same animal. The hut near the elephants is sometimes closed for education talks for schools so you could have walked straight past it. I really like this building too.

    On a side note, I still haven't seen the mara either.
     
  8. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    There was another weird little building by the gorilla research hut, which last time I was able to go up to and try to open the doors, but this time the path was blocked off. There are terrariums in here too, I think one had a Fijian Banded Iguana in it.

    So the Mara are supposed to be in the area you have to push a gate open to enter? That is a nice space, but I don't know if Mara are the best species to have in a children's walkthrough, they always seem very shy and skittish to me. Did you say quokka would be part of this zone too or am I remembering wrong?
     
  9. PAT

    PAT Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    The quokka have a sign in this area but I haven't seen them either. They've not been kept in a walk-through exhibit for as long as I can remember (and I'm not sure about whether the mara have before they came to Melbourne) so it could take a while for them to get more used to being close to people.

    The building that you mention past the gorilla hut is a classroom so I'm surprised the path wasn't blocked off.
     
  10. Pertinax

    Pertinax Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I remember doing similar at Taronga(Sydney) some years back- I was there on my tod at the entrance at 9 a.m as the shutters rolled up. I love that first hour or so at the Zoo with the early morning 'fresh' feel- keepers still finishing off cleaning some exhibits, with hoses and water about, no public yet. IMO its the best bit of the Zoo day.

    On my first visit to Melbourne in the 1980's era I had similar thoughts, particularly as there were some ugly primitive stockyard-type enclosures for hoofed stock at one end of the Zoo. I didn't notice these on my two later visits so presume they are long gone, though that horrible old Baboon enclosure was, amazingly, still there. I certainly think exhibit-wise nowadays that Melbourne ranks on a par with many Zoos in Europe, though being an Australian Zoo, the diversity of species may be overall rather less.
     
  11. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Day Fifty-three

    Today started with a trip to the local Avis outfit, where we picked up a pretty flash Holden that we had booked for the next four days, owing to the impending arrival of the mother- and brother-in-laws-to-be from NZ. However, before we picked them up from the airport, we drove to the far side of Melbourne, where we found the third of the Zoos Victoria properties, Werribee Open Range Zoo, which is located south-west of the city centre, in a rural area. I didn't have particularly high hopes for this zoo, given the minimal number of species on display, but I was very surprised by what I saw.

    We arrived a little after noon, and first stop was the café (just for coffee), which has a great view out over two very different exhibits; on one side is the excellent meerkat enclosure, with the café windows forming part of the fence, while on the opposite side is the amazing gorilla exhibit, which was rather more distant. The gorilla exhibit is massive, holds three male gorillas, and is definitely the best enclosure for this species I have ever seen. The only possible criticism is the minimal cover, but it’s still a superb exhibit.

    We spent the next hour exploring the main part of the zoo, which features a selection of African mammals. Every single exhibit on the African trail is superb, and basically cannot be faulted. The vervet monkeys, lion, hunting dog, hippo and cheetah exhibits are stunning. And the visitors’ areas are perfect. Beautiful vegetation, excellent signage, and lots of great little features. It reminded me greatly of Valencia Bioparc, just better. The animals were also very active, possibly due to the weather, we even saw the hippos running to the water when the thunder rumbled in the distance. The reptile exhibits were located in a perfectly-themed hut, which displayed freshwater crocodile, growling grass frog, Dumeril’s boa and a tank of African fish. Would have been nice if they were all African species, but still very nicely displayed. At 1.30pm we entered a small enclosed arena, with covered seating on one side and grassland with many logs on the other. Once the doors were locked, a serval and keeper entered, and we were treated to a very cool presentation, where the serval demonstrated a range of hunting techniques.

    At 2.30pm, we boarded the safari bus that would take us through the larger enclosures, mostly holding hoofstock. The species here included American bison, Przewalski’s horse, dromedary, scimitar-horned oryx, plains zebra, waterbuck, ostrich, giraffe, white rhino and hippo. There is nothing bad to say about any of these exhibits, but there was no sign of the other antelope species held at the zoo that I had been most looking forward to seeing (e.g. kudu, eland, addax, blackbuck, and African buffalo). We did however see a number of wild birds from the bus, including a massive (500+) flock of sacred ibis, along with various other water birds.

    After disembarking from the bus, we headed over to the Australian section, which is basically a massive walkthrough enclosure, holding brolga, emu and eastern grey kangaroo. At the far end is a wetland, which can be traversed via boardwalks and here we saw more wild birds, including a darter.

    Overall, the zoo is filled with very high-quality exhibits, beautifully spaced out in a stunning setting. There are relatively few species displayed (I’ve listed all I saw above), but I easily spent 4.5 hours here, and probably could have spent a bit longer. There are plans to bring in many more species in the future, but I hope they continue to space the exhibits out, continuing the feeling of a really “big” zoo. This is easily the best zoo in terms of exhibit quality that I have been to in Australia, and while none of the displayed species were new to me, I rate this as the best Australian zoo I have visited so far this year.

    New species: New Holland Honeyeater, White-necked Heron, Australasian Grebe.
     
  12. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    The early morning visits are very interesting, I feel like you see a different side of the zoo then. I have to say that the zoo did fill up very quickly after opening though, by ten it was packed. Having the free-flight aviary almost to myself was pretty cool.

    Exhibit-wise, Melbourne is certainly on par with the bigger European zoos, although obviously can't compete in terms of diversity.
     
  13. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Day Fifty-four

    Today was another public holiday in Australia, and we had planned to basically repeat day fourteen, albeit visiting a different wildlife park. With mother- and brother-in-law in tow. Such fun. We spent the morning circumnavigating the Mornington Peninsula: coffee in Mornington, quick stop at Cape Schanck, lunch at Flinders (home of the world’s largest custard/vanilla square, which was very tasty), which was all nice but not very interesting in terms of wildlife, although I did see my first wild Cattle Egrets. After lunch we drove the 125km to Phillip Island, a rather long and boring trip, around Western Port Bay. Once we reached Phillip Island we visited a chocolate factory, before heading to the island’s wildlife park at 3pm.

    Phillip Island Wildlife Park is a rather run down looking privately-owned native collection, which cost $16 to enter, including a bag of animal food. The weather was dull and overcast on our visit, which didn’t improve the atmosphere much. There were no bad enclosures however, although many could have done with a clean, and a few were empty. The large walk-through aviary had obviously collapsed at some point, although was still being used as an aviary, which meant the birds inside didn’t have much room to fly around. Many animals had multiple enclosures, for example there were at least six individually-housed cassowary and probably six or seven Tasmanian Devil enclosures.

    The animal collection itself, especially the mammals, was excellent, and almost all animals were represented in large numbers. There were a total of 73 species, all native, and the standouts were the very active Quolls (Tiger & Eastern), friendly Common Wombats to feed and pat (bit risky, but fully condoned, same with feeding the cassowaries, who were rather aggressive and I wasn’t going to try that!), a big old Euro and a pack of 16+ Dingoes. The bird collection was dominated by owls and raptors, including a beautiful Little Falcon, while the reptile collection was small and standard.

    Overall the park was a bit sad looking, but the enclosures themselves were a good size and generally well-furnished. Collection-wise it has all the species tourists want to see (koalas, kangaroos, emu, etc) as well as a number of interesting rarities for ZooChatters (e.g. Tasmanian Native Hen, Black-striped Wallaby) too. I wonder if tourists tend to visit the more advertised “Koala Conservation Centre” and other, more-polished, wildlife attractions on the island, which are part of the “Phillip Island Nature Parks” a not-for-profit group.

    Of course, the most famous wildlife attraction is the Phillip Island Little Penguin Colony, which we drove to after leaving the wildlife park (spent less than two hours there - could have spent a bit longer there definitely). The place was packed, and we had to queue for ages. And then pay $22.60 to get in. The set-up is very nice (as it should be for the amount of money they must rake in), and upon entering we checked out the visitors centre, which included some brilliant displays and a few nest boxes where we saw our first penguins.

    We then followed a boardwalk, from which we could see the dunelands where the penguin’s burrows are, and where some wild wallabies were grazing (anyone know what species???), down to the beach. Here we found spots on the concrete grandstand and waited. There is a very strict “no-camera” policy, which seems unfair, but really the penguins don’t come out of the water til dark, so you need a flash to photograph them, which is obviously not good for these shy birds. I took a couple of photos of the beach, and of some small penguin huddles when they first came out of the surf, but otherwise it’s impossible.

    The penguin behaviour was great to watch though, they are so shy, and hang around near the edge of the water until they build up the collective courage to run up the beach to the safety of the dunes. And then they waddle up to their burrows, which in some cases are a very long way away. After a few groups “rafts” had left the water, we followed another boardwalk back up to the visitors centre, walking with various groups of penguins. Very cool experience, although not at all cheap. We spent about 45 minutes watching the penguins, and then went to a local restaurant for tea, before heading back to Melbourne.

    New species: Black-striped Wallaby, Black Flying-fox, Tasmanian Native Hen, Black-breasted Buzzard, Little Falcon, Australian Black Kite, Lesser Sooty Owl.
     
  14. Monty

    Monty Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I have not been to the penguin parade since I was a little kid and can not remember much about it. A few years later though when on holidays with my parents, possibly nearly 30 years ago we went to watch the mutton birds come in at night. Apparently at the right time of year thousands fly in to where they nest each night. Anyway there were burrows where we were and we sat in the dark on the steep slope above a beach. A while after dark nothing had flown in so someone shone a torch around and saw a penguin. We then found we were surrounded by Penguin burrows not mutton birds and spent a while watching the Penguins walk up the slope to their holes. Much better than the crowded Penguin parade and I presume you could still do the same thing as Penguins nest in many places.
     
  15. snowleopard

    snowleopard Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    I'm truly enjoying this thread, as on my 2007 honeymoon my wife and I visited 14 animal attractions on our 6-week jaunt across Australia. We spent a week in Sydney, 4 days in Cairns, 4 days in Darwin, a week in the Red Centre, 4 days in Adelaide, 5 days in Tasmania and we ended off with a week in Melbourne.

    I concur with your thoughts on many of the establishments that you've visited, including the slightly rundown yet still somewhat worthwhile Phillip Island Wildlife Park. Melbourne Zoo's 150th anniversary history book is very impressive (if you collect those sort of things) and I have always been disappointed by the fact that I missed out on Werribee Open Range Zoo. The late-night Penguin Parade on a Phillip Island beach was awesome but nothing beat Uluru and Kings Canyon. Anyway, thanks for this thread as it is fascinating!
     
  16. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    That sounds very cool. If there were other spots where you could see the penguins in a more quiet location that would be great, assuming you could actually access the land, although I'm not sure you would get the same numbers, apparently foxes have had a big impact on penguins where not controlled.

    There were lots of signs up on the roads to look out for birds on the road at night, and these were referring to the shearwaters, but we didn't see any on the drive, and I wasn't able to go to other spots to look for them.
     
  17. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks snowleopard, sounds like you had a great trip around Australia, I think it will be a while before I get up to Cairns and Darwin, and Tasmania, but I'm hoping to get to Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Alice Springs this year, and hopefully get some good zoo-visiting in there, as well as in Victoria. We are planning on buying a car in the next few days, which should make visiting regional zoos a lot easier.

    Melbourne's 150th anniversary book does look great, both the hardback and paperback are still available in the gift shop, and I plan on buying these on my next visit, as I should be able to afford them by then. Interestingly, Adelaide Zoo is celebrating its 130th anniversary this month.
     
  18. Monty

    Monty Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    I can not remember exactly where it was, but have a look in daylight for likely areas with burrows. I am sure Penguins would still come ashore in a lot of beaches there.
     
  19. PAT

    PAT Well-Known Member 15+ year member

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    Have you been to St Kilda pier. It's only a short tram ride from the city but can get pretty busy so it's probably best to get there early. The penguins can walk around your feet and there's also the chance of seeing water rats.
     
  20. zooboy28

    zooboy28 Well-Known Member

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    I went to St. Kilda Pier a couple of weekends ago, before going to Luna Park. At least I think that was that pier. Do penguins nest around there? And I presume you mean arrive early at night to see them? And water rats in the sea? Sounds very cool.