Let's get us started with the most intricate of the netted gardens: De Siertuin
De Siertuin, AKA the Oriental Garden, is the second largest of the netted gardens. The garden is based around a few different things:
- The Beautiful gardens with small streams and koi ponds found in East Asia. With animals so beautiful that they almost seem created for the emperor himself. With Mandarin ducks, Spotted doves and Reeves's pheasants seemingly gilded for the gardens.
- The intricate rice fields covering the hills of Southern China, created for farming but used by egrets and ibises alike for foraging for small water beetles.
- The beautiful and endangered red-crowned crane. A symbol of beauty and longevity, having a near-mythological status everywhere they occur.
These concepts come together to create the design for the Oriental Garden:
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I will show this image again a few times during the walkthrough, so you don't have to scroll back up constantly 
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You enter at the bottom of the map, where two large platforms allow visitors to pick between the two main areas. A small stream from the garden flows under a bridge into the main river.
To the left is the actual Oriental garden. Here, you can step down from the platform and walk through the winding paths that flow through the small bushes, willow trees, topiaries and bonsais. Along with these, there are also oriental stones and miniature ghost temples, with a large lake for koi carps in the middle.
Despite this part of the garden being the most intricately designed, it's also the region I designed the least. I didn't draw in all the small bushes because the whole garden would be specifically designed after real Japanese gardens. Wetlands park will have good relationships with Japan, and it will take a special design team to decorate this area of the aviary.
In the middle of the lake there is a small island with a central gazebo and stepping stones to get to the island. (Number four)
All the way in the back of the garden is a small, separated area. You can get here through three doors. Two of the doors lead to a small, roofed platform floating above the water. The other leads to a small outside area with a small wall separating the visitor area from the water area. There is another gazebo in the middle, making for a second viewing platform into the water. The whole garden is walled off from the rest of the garden, and netted over to prevent birds from getting in. This garden is home to a pair of Chinese alligators, as well as some fish and Japanese pond turtles. (number 3)
The actual garden part of the Oriental garden, with its intricate design and smaller shrubs and trees, as well as still water, will hopefully be the home for the many smaller passerines, miniature ground birds as well as the Falcated and Mandarin ducks. The shrubs above the water will also be good nesting places for the egrets and herons of the aviary.
Through a small, rounded gate, you can enter to the central village square immediately from the garden. However, for the sake of seeing everything, we will return to the aviary's entrance before we continue.
When standing on the raised platform, we can also walk to the right, to get our first view of the rice paddies, and the marshy area of the river that lies at the bottom.
You can see on the map that a small area here has been lined out in red. Hidden in the water is a small fence separating this marsh from the rest of the river, because this area is home to a small group of Chinese Water Deer. (Number 5)
Beneath the platforms there are stables hidden from the visitors which act as the indoor holding for the deer. A large weeping willow stands on the island in the middle of the river. This area is the most shallow the river gets, to allow the deer to walk through it with relative ease.
Past a small guard hut you can pass over the bridge and on to a large wall, where you can just about see the roof of a temple peaking above. A tall rounded gate leads you into the village.
Instantly to the left you are greeted by a great temple. Instead of the usual dragon or lion statues, two large, stone salamanders stand at the entrance. We will return to the temple later...
The village is separated into four areas. With little houses that serve no purpose and walls that block nothing, this is mainly done to create the illusion that the town is larger than it is, as well as to encourage guests to walk around and get a little lost in the process.
First there's the riverbank houses, between B and C. Here you can get a good view of the rice paddies on the other side of the great river. Next to house B, there is also another small separated enclosure. This small aviary is designed with rocks and small bushes and houses Père David rock squirrels. These can also be seen in their indoor enclosure, which is inside house B, which is heavily sloped for secret reasons we'll get into later...
House C has windows on both sides that are visible from the path. If you're lucky you might see some animals poking their head up here, again, something we'll see more of later...
On the other side of House C, is a slope that leads down to the river. Here is a small plaza with underwater viewing into the river, where multiple different fish swim, including sturgeons and carp. There also seems to be a tunnel leading out here, wonder what that's about...
Our next section of the village is near houses E and F. Once again we can see two small separated enclosures. The smaller one is home to Japanese Silkie chickens, and is has a slightly barren design. A small climbing structure for the chickens but not much else, as you would expect for a chicken coop. On the other side, however, is a larger aviary, with again a foresty interior. This aviary holds Brown eared pheasants and Azure-winged magpies.
House F also has the indoor holding for both these aviaries, where the magpies are allowed to go to both sides if they want to (though I expect them to stay mostly in the larger aviary).
House E greets you with a large window. This is the indoor enclosure for the Chinese alligators, and also their home when temperatures get too low for them to be outside. The enclosure is sandy with only a smaller water pool, this is to allow for them to hibernate for the time they are here. When the alligators are hibernating during the winter, the doors to their outdoor garden will be removed, to allow the birds to go in if they please. The netting on top remains, though. As we don't want them to get too comfortable in here, the gators will return in May, after all...
Finally there is the village square, with a koi pond in the middle and a good view of the temple. The koi pond also has two small islands, surrounded by reeds and lilies. The small house D hides the filtration for the pond. Speaking of hiding things: the un-lettered mini-houses actually hide supply places for zookeepers and guides, the latter of which are always present in the different regions of the garden to educate guests and make sure they don't litter or harass the aninals.
Now on to the favourite part of the garden, as far as the average zoochatter is concerned: The Riverine temple (A).
You enter through two large doorways. On the lower floor of the temple are five enclosures.
To the right are two large glass windows, where most (Dutch) adults can still see above the water's surface. The enclosures are open-topped and there are bushes above the water's surface. People who are familiar with my designs might notice a new colour: turquoise! This represents a marsh area. In the case of these enclosures, there are shallow areas in the aquariums with reeds and other shallow water plants.
These two aquariums are both home to four Chinese salamanders, making a total of eight salamanders, which would arrive from Prague zoo. The salamanders are held together with a large group of tropical Chinese fish, including Chinese perch, Red bitterling and Formosan Pale Chub. Both enclosures have the same types of fish, which can not be said about the giant aquarium on the other side of the temple...
On the other side of the temple is an even large aquarium, this one being home to Japanese giant salamanders. A large group of ten animals would arrive from Japan. These will be held together with fish more resistant to cold water (in comparison to the Chinese salamander aquarium), including rainbow trouts, sturgeons and paradisefish, among others.
Both of the enclosures will have intricate underwater designs with live plants, large sunken logs and a bottom made out of large rounded stones. Above both enclosures there are also open areas in the wall, which would allow for the passerines to enter the temple. This way the temple seconds as partial indoor holding for the birds.
In the middle of the temple is a raised platform with on top a shrine to a large bronze statue of a giant salamander, along the walls are multiple murals to different endangered East Asian animals. Including Red-crowned cranes, Japanese crested ibises, Formosan pangolins and Blue-crowned laughingthrush.
Also in the middle of the temple is central plateau with a glass-surrounded enclosure for Newts native to a relatively small island between Japan and Taiwan.
Of course, we're not stopping there. Between the entrances there is a staircase to a second level, with seven smaller enclosures (at least, in comparison to the giant aquariums downstairs. The enclosures are still larger than the average enclosures for these species).
Enclosures 2, 3 and 4 are mostly visible above water, with smaller, shallow pools to allow for the animals to bathe if they wish. Enclosures 1, 5 and 7 have deeper waters, and can be well-viewed both above and below the water line. Enclosure number 6 is the only one with no aquatic area.
The smaller enclosures are home to Snakes and Lizards, while the larger paludariums house some of China's most endangered turtle species. There is also a bridge in the middle to allow for visitors to walk in a circle instead of having to turn around.
The best visualization I could find for the temple is this one:
Here's a simplified side view of the temple:
Now that we have the temple described, we can move on to the semifinals: the forest ridge.
From the back of the village you can enter the great wall. Through a circular staircase or a hidden elevator you can travel to the top of the wall to get a good view of the other side. From here you can get a view over the whole aviary, especially the large valley, backed up by a large mountain. This valley is home to Chinese gorals and Reeves's muntjacs. (Number 2)
The enclosure is mostly grassy, with pine trees and bamboo bushes breaking up the landscape, as well as large boulders in the forest. A ledge in the back of the enclosures allow the Gorals to climb to a higher area. A stream also flows through the valley, with multiple small waterfalls. Also visible from this area is the larger waterfall that starts at the mountain.
The great wall is topped with two guard towers, which is where the staircases end and start. The tower on the river side goes from the wall to the village, the tower on the other side goes down and leads into the Siberian aviary, which will be described at a later date.
Welp, that concludes our travels through the oriental garden. I'll be uploading the animal pictures separately, as there's too many pages to include them in this same message.
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Wait, what do you mean secret tunnel?
Oh yea, that secret tunnel thing.
Before you enter the village, you can also go into a side entrance that leads downward into a small underground area with two separated enclosures and three large windows for underwater viewing.
This is also the reason the Rock squirrel indoor exhibit is sloped, it's to have the downward staircase be hidden from the village side. The enclosures are home to various species.
In the beginning of the park's opening, the larger enclosure will be home to Giant flying squirrels, while the smaller enclosure will be home to Siberian weasels. However, the enclosures are designed for other animals.
Plans are to get Formosan (Chinese) pangolins from Taipei, which would be held together with the flying squirrels in the larger enclosure. Trough a small tunnel, the squirrels can also go up to the second level, which ends up in house C. The pangolins are confined to the lower area, which has dim lights to replicate a nocturnal setting (sunlight from the second floor is minimal).
In the smaller enclosure is room for Palm civets, which would also arrive from Taiwan.
The tunnel comes out in the lower area of the village. I also pictured the Water deer indoor holding area.
Here's some side more side views to hopefully clarify some of the areas:
Side view of the whole aviary, showcasing the heights:
(In total, the netting's highest points are about 20 meters tall)
The lower village area, Alligator garden and Tunnel/Squirrel enclosure:
I used different colours throughout the layout to signify the basic heights of the walls, here's a representation of that:
Ok, NOW we're done.
Let me know what you guys think! I'm personally very proud of how it turned out. ZC's maximum image count in one message is ten, and there have been 9 in this message. So I'm going to upload the animal imagery in a separate message, but that shouldn't matter too much.
Also: I have been typing for about two and a half hours straight and I might take a nap, lol.
). It features a huge river with colossal inhabitants, as well as many free-roamers, and two separated areas for larger reptiles.
