Melbourne Zoo 2008 - Historic listed aviary

January 2008

Historic listed aviary.

Whats in this aviary now?

Electus Parrot said:

Whats in this aviary now?

Click to expand...

Blue-and-Yellow and Buffon's Macaws.

A few years ago it was conceived as a mixed-species Amazon enclosure with Blue-and-Yellow and Green-winged Macaws, Sun Conures, Quaker Parrots, Squirrel Monkeys and Brazilian Agoutis. For various reasons the mix was unsuccessful, with the result that now there's just the two species of macaws.

Prior to the Amazon theme, the aviary held Australian cockatoos.

This Aviary was re-designed (and stocked) by a South Australian Bird Dealer.

A rather fine-looking aviary - looks like it's been modernised very sympathetically.

And the plants seem to be holding up to the attentions of the macaws very well - had it been replanted soon beofre this was taken?

There's currently five macaws in this enclosure - two blue-and-yellow, one buffon's and two red-fronted macaws.

The foliage has been well and truly decimated, unfortunately. Whether that is due to the birds or staff I'm not sure though, as there is a disturbing trend going on throughout the zoo for foliage (mainly surrounding exhibits) to be removed.

It was not actually built as an aviary. It was built for monkeys, there was a central access column, and the structure was segmented, I can't remember if there were three or six segments, each with a different species.

That's fascinating that it used to be home to primates. Thanks for that information.

I believe that it's also home to a razor-billed curassow at the moment as well.

Its still a fine looking structure.

For a historic enclosure, this isn't bad at all!