Birmingham Nature Centre Birmingham Zoo

Brum

Brum

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Hi all,

A comment on another thread has got me thinking and I wondererd if any of you had been to Birmingham Zoo before it was closed down and reopened by the council as The Nature Centre?

http://www.zoochat.com/1087/birmingham-zoo-map-146872/

They appeared to have a general collection in terms of moderately sized 'ABC' animals but I dread to think what sort of conditions they lived in. My family have also mentioned crocodiles being held there, anybody know anything about the species?

Any information would be greatly appreciated as I am extremely curious about this collection.

Thanks.
 
Geoffrey Schomberg said "This is a little gem of a zoo." He said it had been designed to exhibit mainly young animals, but also Dudley's monkey collection. He mentions "a fine Gibbon exhibit" and outdoor enclosures for Lions, Leopards, Bears, Camels, Llamas, Zebras, Antelope, Kangaroos, various "park" birds, Penguins etc. I am sure I saw an article in the "Shropshire Star" about a young Elephant - as we lived in Shrewsbury from April 1971 to September 1974 that must have been not long before the zoo closed as I remember a hoped for visit was thwarted by the closure!

I've just realised I should have looked at the map before I typed that! I now have and it shows exhibits I just mentioned.

More editing. Looking at the map it mirrors everything mentioned in "The Penguin Guide to British Zoos"!
 
Parrotsandrew said:
Geoffrey Schomberg said "This is a little gem of a zoo." He said it had been designed to exhibit mainly young animals, but also Dudley's monkey collection. He mentions "a fine Gibbon exhibit" and outdoor enclosures for Lions, Leopards, Bears, Camels, Llamas, Zebras, Antelope, Kangaroos, various "park" birds, Penguins etc. I am sure I saw an article in the "Shropshire Star" about a young Elephant - as we lived in Shrewsbury from April 1971 to September 1974 that must have been not long before the zoo closed as I remember a hoped for visit was thwarted by the closure!

I've just realised I should have looked at the map before I typed that! I now have and it shows exhibits I just mentioned.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Andrew! :D
The gibbon exhibit has an ibis aviary on it now and I can imagine a gibbon in it to this day. I personally wouldn't want to see one in there but I imagine it was the norm back in the 1960's.
The map is interesting because the paths still roughly corespond, the cafe is in the same place and the entrance is still there. (albeit a bit further in than previously!)
It is now larger than it was when it was a zoo, covering the grass on the otherside of the brook.
I imagine some of the enclosures are still in use but have been renovated to meet modern standards.
 
Sorry I could not provide more information. I am sorry I did not get to visit the zoo and I have made only one visit to the Nature Centre (late 1990s). Regarding 1960s Gibbon exhibits, I am sure it would have been more spacious than Sewerby's circa 10' to 12' square and circa 8' high outdoor area!
 
Parrotsandrew said:
Sorry I could not provide more information. I am sorry I did not get to visit the zoo and I have made only one visit to the Nature Centre (late 1990s). Regarding 1960s Gibbon exhibits, I am sure it would have been more spacious than Sewerby's circa 10' to 12' square and circa 8' high outdoor area!
Click to expand...

No worries, that's the most detail I've heard about the place in my life, it's always been sketchy family memories beforehand.
As for visiting, you probably wouldn't like it (only a small selection of birds, no parrots!) but is definitely worth a visit if you're ever down this way! :D
 
Birmingham Zoo had cedarwood buildings, there were basically paddock mammals, a few birds and a pair of Tayra!.
 
Parrotsandrew said:
:eek:.......Seriously I did enjoy the visit I made. The Mouflon stick in my mind. Some parrots would definitely enhance the place though!
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Unfortunately the mouflon are long gone but they did have an Iligers macaw until quite recently. ;)

Pete87 said:
Birmingham Zoo had cedarwood buildings, there were basically paddock mammals, a few birds and a pair of Tayra!
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I think a few of the buildings are still standing, I know the cafe was an original building at least. And I would love to see tayra back there again! :D
 
Pity about the Mouflon - I don't think I have seen any since, and at one time they were such a zoo staple. Pity about the Illiger's Macaw too! At least I still see a few Illiger's, most recently at Paradise Park in September.
 
Parrotsandrew said:
Pity about the Mouflon - I don't think I have seen any since, and at one time they were such a zoo staple.
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They only went down the road, West Midlands Safari Park. I haven't seen them there though, presumably still off show?
 
I popped in for a quick visit this afternoon as I had a little spare time in Birmingham. It must be nearly 40 years since my only previous visit :eek:
Actually the only thing I remember from then is the gibbons (two lars, one dark and one light) partly because I took a photo of them play fighting, which I still have somewhere. I did recognise their old cage, but nothing else jogged my memory.
I enjoyed my visit today, but it was too cold and windy for the marmosets and tamarins to venture outside. I was glad to see the new enclosures but sorry to miss the Alaotra gentle lemurs and other species that are due to arrive soon. I got a few photos and I will post some soon.

Alan
 
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gentle lemur said:
I popped in for a quick visit this afternoon as I had a little spare time in Birmingham. It must be nearly 40 years since my only previous visit :eek:
Actually the only thing I remember from then is the gibbons (two lars, one dark and one light) partly because I took a photo of them play fighting, which I still have somewhere. I did recognise their old cage, but nothing else jogged my memory.
I enjoyed my visit today, but it was too cold and windy for the marmosets and tamarins to venture outside. I was glad to see the new enclosures but sorry to miss the Alaotra gentle lemurs and other species that are due to arrive soon. I got a few photos and I will post some soon.

Alan
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Alan, as a Chester regular what were your impressions of the collection? I know it's small but did you think you got your moneys worth? Also I assume you think that it's changed a lot in the past 40 years, presumably for the better! :D
 
zoogiraffe said:
They were on-show in march but they have now been moved off-show to graze part of the SSI site!
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That makes sense, are they sharing the area with the yak? My first visit of the year was June and I did look around the reserves and even the African Village (after all this is WMSP... :p) but didn't even think to look beyond the fence line. Thanks for the info! :)
 
Parrotsandrew said:
Pity about the Mouflon - I don't think I have seen any since, and at one time they were such a zoo staple.
Click to expand...

It was discussed on here a couple of years back that Mouflon have almost died out in the UK. This was stimulated by a press article about someone who had a single male on a farm and was trying to find females for it. Was it the last Mouflon in the UK? Answer no- but they are very few in number now.

There was also discussion about whether the Birmingham ones were pure or not- photos of them showed 'domestic' traits in at least one. I think they may have been all females.
 
Brum said:
Alan, as a Chester regular what were your impressions of the collection? I know it's small but did you think you got your moneys worth? Also I assume you think that it's changed a lot in the past 40 years, presumably for the better! :D
Click to expand...

As my memory has failed me virtually completely, I can't really make valid comparisons. I must have thought that the gibbons were the best exhibit as it is the only one I recall. I do remember that at that time the collection didn't match up to Geoffrey Schomberg's description, which was probably written a few years previously.
As previously mentioned, the zoo has been extended across the stream and of course new enclosures have been built throughout the zoo. I think that the current enclosures are pretty good, although some are quirky and some seem to have been modified and, in some cases. re-modified for their present occupants.
I liked the open-air exhibits for harvest mice and pied tamarins, although I didn't see either species - if the weather had been better and I had more time, I would have been happy to wait and watch for them to appear. The new exhibits for Alaotra gentle lemurs and ring-tailed lemurs looked good and work was being done on renovating the exhibit next to the ibis for an ocelot. Adding these species to the ones that I saw will give decent value for money in my opinion.
The animals all looked well and I spent some time watching the porcupines, red panda and squirrel monkeys which I thought were nice exhibits (although I suppose the panda enclosure will look quite bare when their tree sheds its leaves). I don't know if the black and white ruffed lemurs are newly introduced, but there was someone watching them carefully and they were quite active; it was nice to hear them calling as I left.
I was not so sure about the nocturnal exhibits, although I always think these are difficult for zoos to get right. Yesterday the wind was blowing the black plastic strips in the doorways around (there are no proper doors), which made viewing very difficult. I glimpsed a douroucouli with some sort of small rodent (degu?) and a loris, and had better views of 2 giant jumping rats: the mouse lemurs were no shows.
The Reptile house and the Invert display were OK but I think the bird collection is a weakness. The old gibbon cage doesn't really show off the ibis well and the same applies to the smallish paddocks for the Stanley and white-naped cranes. Likewise the newer aviary at the other end of the zoo looked rather cramped and short of shelter for a very nice group of Reeve's pheasants. Perhaps when the ring-tailed lemurs move to their new home they will be able to modify their current enclosure into an aviary.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
I do remember that at that time the collection didn't match up to Geoffrey Schomberg's description, which was probably written a few years previously.
Click to expand...

I think he tended to look at places through rose-tinted spectacles hence his glowing descriptions..;)
 
gentle lemur said:
As my memory has failed me virtually completely, I can't really make valid comparisons. I must have thought that the gibbons were the best exhibit as it is the only one I recall. I do remember that at that time the collection didn't match up to Geoffrey Schomberg's description, which was probably written a few years previously.
As previously mentioned, the zoo has been extended across the stream and of course new enclosures have been built throughout the zoo. I think that the current enclosures are pretty good, although some are quirky and some seem to have been modified and, in some cases. re-modified for their present occupants.
I liked the open-air exhibits for harvest mice and pied tamarins, although I didn't see either species - if the weather had been better and I had more time, I would have been happy to wait and watch for them to appear. The new exhibits for Alaotra gentle lemurs and ring-tailed lemurs looked good and work was being done on renovating the exhibit next to the ibis for an ocelot. Adding these species to the ones that I saw will give decent value for money in my opinion.
The animals all looked well and I spent some time watching the porcupines, red panda and squirrel monkeys which I thought were nice exhibits (although I suppose the panda enclosure will look quite bare when their tree sheds its leaves). I don't know if the black and white ruffed lemurs are newly introduced, but there was someone watching them carefully and they were quite active; it was nice to hear them calling as I left.
I was not so sure about the nocturnal exhibits, although I always think these are difficult for zoos to get right. Yesterday the wind was blowing the black plastic strips in the doorways around (there are no proper doors), which made viewing very difficult. I glimpsed a douroucouli with some sort of small rodent (degu?) and a loris, and had better views of 2 giant jumping rats: the mouse lemurs were no shows.
The Reptile house and the Invert display were OK but I think the bird collection is a weakness. The old gibbon cage doesn't really show off the ibis well and the same applies to the smallish paddocks for the Stanley and white-naped cranes. Likewise the newer aviary at the other end of the zoo looked rather cramped and short of shelter for a very nice group of Reeve's pheasants. Perhaps when the ring-tailed lemurs move to their new home they will be able to modify their current enclosure into an aviary.

Alan
Click to expand...

Thanks for the summary. I'd like to point out that the lemur enclosure was previously an aviary for Eurasian eagle owls and the rodents in with the douroucouli are cavies. Also the ruffeds have been in the collection for a while now, wonder why they were being watched? Did you see the squirrels or mouse lemurs? Also two other very elusive species.
I haven't seen the harvest mice since they were moved from the small mammal house either and I visit regularly! The pied tamarins are more viewable when they're in the house and cage at this time of year, especially if you have a decent zoom on your camera... ;)
 
Brum said:
Did you see the squirrels or mouse lemurs? Also two other very elusive species.
I haven't seen the harvest mice since they were moved from the small mammal house either and I visit regularly! The pied tamarins are more viewable when they're in the house and cage at this time of year, especially if you have a decent zoom on your camera... ;)
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I have just posted 3 photos, including a red squirrel. The squirrels are well camouflaged as all the woodwork is stained red-brown and the pine needles on the many branches in the enclosure are almost exactly the same shade too.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
I have just posted 3 photos, including a red squirrel. The squirrels are well camouflaged as all the woodwork is stained red-brown and the pine needles on the many branches in the enclosure are almost exactly the same shade too.

Alan
Click to expand...

I'm envious now, I'm still to see them in the new enclosure, very rarely saw them in the old one if I'm honest.
 
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