Jurong Bird Park Hornbills,pheasants, Birds of Paradise and those odd looking parrots

when you do get to Singapore Jonathan, make sure you've got plenty of time!! The first time I went I visited Jurong twice, for six hours each time. The next time I was over there I just went to my favourite bits of the bird park and was still there for five hours!

And then there's the zoo, aquarium, insect park, Raffles' museum...and you wouldn't be able to pass up a trip over to Pulau Ubin off the coast to see some wild Oriental pied hornbills I'm sure.

I love Singapore!
 
I'm afraid not. I've never seen them before, not even sure if they were ever on display
 
BirdPark saw the hatching of a golden conure and wrinkled hornbill recently.

The zoo had a 2nd generation proboscis monkey born earlier this year. The mother was captive born at the zoo. A purple-faced langur was also born recently.

The zoo acquired 6 white-nosed coatimundis a few months ago, but they're not on display. They will be involved in a new show early next year.
 
Where did the zoo get their coatimundis from?

How is the wrinkled hornbill doing, do you have any pictures?

New species/updates?
 
I don't know exactly, but I'm guessing they're from some S.American zoo.

Last I heard, the hornbill chick's doing fine. No pics because the birdpark's breeding and research centre is strictly out of bounds. Plus i don't know any of the aviculturists working there.

Night Safari is due to receive 3 giant flying squirrels (petaurista petaurista) from San Diego soon. They're of a different species from the ones currently kept at the park.
 
Hi Zooish
I get lots of confusing infos about the presence or not of Helmeted hornbills in Jurong Bird Park... What is the truth in that? Are there helmeted hornbills? On display??
I'm a little confused because one friend zookeeper in Koln zoo told me there was no more, not even backstage, and one of walsrode's keeper told me they were on exhibit...
The only helmeted hornbill I saw, so far, was a young male kept in Kuala-Lumpur Birdpark's nursery.
If I recall, amongst the very unusual species I saw in Jurong Bird park (for an european guy like me), there was the Blyth's hawk eagle (Spizaetus alboniger), the Wallace Hawk-eagle (Spizaetus nanus), the Bushy-crested hornbills (Anorrhinus galeritus), the greater racket-tailed drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus), the giant coucal (Centropus sinensis), most birds of paradise species and, a really nice surprise, a wild great-billed heron (Ardea sumatrana) in the milky storks pool!
 
Pedro said:
Hi Zooish
I get lots of confusing infos about the presence or not of Helmeted hornbills in Jurong Bird Park... What is the truth in that? Are there helmeted hornbills? On display??
I'm a little confused because one friend zookeeper in Koln zoo told me there was no more, not even backstage, and one of walsrode's keeper told me they were on exhibit...
The only helmeted hornbill I saw, so far, was a young male kept in Kuala-Lumpur Birdpark's nursery.
If I recall, amongst the very unusual species I saw in Jurong Bird park (for an european guy like me), there was the Blyth's hawk eagle (Spizaetus alboniger), the Wallace Hawk-eagle (Spizaetus nanus), the Bushy-crested hornbills (Anorrhinus galeritus), the greater racket-tailed drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus), the giant coucal (Centropus sinensis), most birds of paradise species and, a really nice surprise, a wild great-billed heron (Ardea sumatrana) in the milky storks pool!
Click to expand...

I believe Jurong still has a pair of helmeted hornbills, but they are kept off-show. However, I do not have confirmation, and Jurong did not reply to the email I sent regarding this.

The Wallace Hawk-eagle is no longer around, but the rest of the species were still there when I visited earlier this year. I'm not sure if the great-billed heron belongs to the park, but its almost always there! This species is native, but very very rare.
 
does anyone have a photo of a great billed heron, sounds a fantastic bird a new one to me.
 
Here's one of the pics I took in August 2006.
I noticed he has a ring on one leg which would mean that he probably belongs to the park...

apu-6-i1ro8z4jdon13fbhfaqproz3.jpg
 
Jurong BirdPark has begun construction for a new exhibit to be called "Dinosaur Descendants" which should be ready by June or September 2008. Don't have much details about this project yet but it will house the park's ratites and demonstrate the evoluntionary link between birds and dinos.

The only other zoo exhibit i know of which explicitly features the link between dinos and birds is the Wings of Asia aviary at Miami Zoo.

While most scientists have come to except this evolutionary relationship, a few vocal others are still trying to disprove it.
 
I was wondering something...
Storm's storks, greater adjudant, white-shouldered ibisses are amongst asia's most threatened waterbirds. Why don't Jurong Birdpark start some breeding plan concerning these birds?? Instead of keeping ostreiches, nandus and emus....
For white-shouldered ibis, it will probably be very difficult, almost impossible, but I'm sure something could be done with the storm's storks, like it's being done in US zoos.
 
You have a point Pedro. Jurong however has never been too keen nor successful in breeding large waterfowl species, perhaps with the exception of milky storks and crowned cranes and flamingos. The breeding focus is mainly on parrots, hornbills, BoPs, maybe because these birds are smaller and thus easier to house off-exhibit which is more conducive for breeding.

Ostriches are to a birdpark what elephants are to a zoo. Visitors expect to see such charismatic and well known species. While ostriches have ZERO conservation value, they are superlative birds afterall.

On another note regarding kiang's reply, it is surprisingly hard for Singapore to get animals from Malaysian zoos. Ego and politics easily get into the way.
 
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