Mixed species enclosures and other changes for Burgers Zoo

Palm Doves are extremely pretty and would do well, but are only on the fringes of Europe. Certainly the smaller egrets and Squacco Heron could be included.

I mean, if the Palm Dove has a too small population in Europe, then the Squacco Heron has the same problem, living only in fragmented populations in Spain, Portugal and France
 
I don't know. It's just my personal experience that it's very rewarding to see a sign displaying a large amount of free-roaming birds, picking out one or two, and then doing your best to find them, even going through the region a few times to make sure you didn't miss anything.




I think they're kept in Asian regions mainly because of the namesake, keeping an Asiatic lion in an African region would be concidered strange and confusing. Along with that, you would keep an Asiatic lion in the Asian region because you don't have any other lion options for Asia.
If you want a lion in the Asian region, you can only pick the Asiatic lion. But if you want a crane in the European region you have a larger variety of choices that are more appropriate
There is only one crane at all commonly found in Europe, the Common Crane. Demoiselle Crane is a very rare breeder. Sandhill and Siberian Cranes occur only as accidental vagrants.
 
But if you want a crane in the European region you have a larger variety of choices that are more appropriate
Last time I checked only two species of crane live in Europe, and one of them is only present on the fringes of Europe.

If you meant herons, even though multiple species are present when you are talking about the big herons, only grey, greater egret and purple come to mind.

I mean, if the Palm Dove has a too small population in Europe, then the Squacco Heron has the same problem, living only in fragmented populations in Spain, Portugal and France
And Italy, the Balkans and Ukraine...

Edit: You know the IUCN has great maps of many species' distributions: IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Fully free and often very detailed.
 
I mean, if the Palm Dove has a too small population in Europe, then the Squacco Heron has the same problem, living only in fragmented populations in Spain, Portugal and France
Much commoner in Europe than Palm Dove. I’ve seen plenty of Squacco Herons in Spain, and even two in England.
 
Okay, that's fair. These maps are way more detailed
Let me guess, you were using the Wikipedia maps? Some of those are great, but a lot are very simplistic with many mistakes.

HBW live was also a very good one for birds, but they have been replaced by a site where you need to pay to see the distribution maps.
 
What is it based on? A dutch forest? A Northern pine forest? A Mediterranean dry forest? Or just a general European aviary?

It's a mix of a few different regions
European bird aviary.png

Ignore that the path went all spiky, my drawing program is being a little bitch.

You enter in the pine forest, with mossy rocks sticking out from the ground, based on Scandinavia

Then there's a more open, grassy broadleaf forest based more on Southern France

There's a short section next to the water with just grass and a few bushes that's really just city park-like

And finally there's a rocky, arid area based on Portugal and Southern Spain with only a few trees and bushes
 

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Then I'd suggest the following birds as a basis:

Stock Dove
European bee-eater
European roller (to be watched, as said before I don't have seen them attack small songbirds in aviaries yet but caution is never a bad thing with these mixes)
Iberian magpie
European hoopoo
European thick-knee
Red-legged partridge
Garganey
White-headed duck

With these you should be able to add several smaller songbirds. I'd think in that case about species like European goldfinch, European greenfinch and Eurasian siskin. Wagtails are also a very nice species behavior-wise.
 
Alright then, how about this:

European bird aviary.png

Two lowered enclosures so that they're not walkthrough for naughty birds
 

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Alright then, how about this:

View attachment 468975

Two lowered enclosures so that they're not walkthrough for naughty birds
And how are you going to keep those "naughty" birds in? As said before pinioning is no longer an option in the Netherlands. For birds that are rather difficult to keep like capercaillies, one could also question wether pinioning/wing-clipping wouldn't decrease the chances of successfully mating. Common quail and hazel grouse also don't seem very naughty to me.

I'd say just house the bustards and capercaillies in separate aviaries if you really want to keep them.
 
Then I'd suggest the following birds as a basis:

Stock Dove
European bee-eater
European roller (to be watched, as said before I don't have seen them attack small songbirds in aviaries yet but caution is never a bad thing with these mixes)
Iberian magpie
European hoopoo
European thick-knee
Red-legged partridge
Garganey
White-headed duck

With these you should be able to add several smaller songbirds. I'd think in that case about species like European goldfinch, European greenfinch and Eurasian siskin. Wagtails are also a very nice species behavior-wise.
Thank you for endorsing Stock Dove, a personal favourite and much under rated species.
 
And how are you going to keep those "naughty" birds in? As said before pinioning is no longer an option in the Netherlands.

I was planning on doing an aviary in an aviary, similar to the Africa rocks aviary, But with open tops so that the flying birds can fly in if they want

Common quail and hazel grouse also don't seem very naughty to me.

I know, but I wanted to add some extras to the other enclosures
 
I was planning on doing an aviary in an aviary, similar to the Africa rocks aviary, But with open tops so that the flying birds can fly in if they want
I don't really understand what you want to do here. Do you want to have tiny holes in the netting so that other birds can enter? Cause open-topped sounds like the birds in the separate enclosures can just fly out.

I know, but I wanted to add some extras to the other enclosures
Which highly increases the risk of conflicts, especially with terrestrial birds in a limited space.
 
I was planning on doing an aviary in an aviary, similar to the Africa rocks aviary, But with open tops so that the flying birds can fly in if they want
That is not how the Africa Rocks Aviary works. It is just a normal aviary, outside of the aviary there is netting above you but it is not another aviary
 
That is not how the Africa Rocks Aviary works. It is just a normal aviary, outside of the aviary there is netting above you but it is not another aviary
I take it this netting is there to support the netting of the surrounding lemur habitats. I can't seem to find another logical reason for this netting.
 
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