humming bird help please!!

J

jbird330

Member
hello to everyone.
im looking for any information regarding the humming bird collection house at regents park zoo during the 1940's and 1950's. i believe it was changed in 1958. its info about the building that im after, also believed to be the reptile house before this? pics/zoo guides anything that may relate to this building.
thanks for any info
jason
 
According to my copy of "The Zoo" some time in the 1930s an old tortoise house was converted into a home for hummingbirds where they were free flying (an early walkthrough!), and later other birds were added, but it was never successful, the humming birds didn't thrive and forty years later the little building was demolished (so you may find someone here remembers it because that would make it still there in the 70s). This tortoise house is marked on a plan of 1923 as being where the bottom entrance to squirrel monkeys is now.

That's not very informative, sorry. Perhaps the library at London Zoo could help you?
 
The Bird House was built in 1882/83 as a Reptile House, but that was not the Tortoise House - ahem! I am looking at a plan of the zoo in 1929, but I cannot see a Tortoise house. I'll just get my 1930s guide books - ah, there is a Tortoise House on the plan in the 1930 guide. It was at the southern end of the Monkey House. Oh, that is not the right house as in 1937 the Humming Birds were in the Tropical House (in the corner of the gardens near to the Bird House) which "was originally used mainly for Giant Tortoises". There does not appear to be a plan in the 1937 guide - maybe it was an insert like the Whipsnade leaflet that is there. When I found the 1937 guide in a second-hand bookshop I thought it looked as though it was from the 1950s and I was amazed when I found it was not - it is much more "modern" than the 1930 one.

Is your 1923 Tortoise House the later Tropical House volvox? The 1930 guide says it was a greenhouse. It does not say when it was converted. A couple of pages earlier that guide also has a lovely photo of a pair of Kagus that were in the Bird House. Where is my time machine?

P.S. I remember going into the Tropical House, but not really anything about what was in it I am afraid.
 
The current Bird House was built in 1882 /1883; it was originally built as a Reptile House, with the cost of the construction being (partly) funded by the sale of the famous African elephant ‘Jumbo’. When the current Reptile House was opened in 1927 the previous one was converted for birds. This building was refurbished a few years ago and is now called the Blackburn Pavilion.

Near this building a Tortoise House was built in 1897; Lord Walter Rothschild, founder of the Tring Zoological Museum, donated some money towards building this. The Tortoise House was subsequently converted into the Tropical House / Humming Bird House and it was demolished in 1985.
 
Last edited:
thanks for all the info guys. its given me some direction, to go and look into.
any other information is greatly appreciated.

jason
 
Hummingbirds may not have done wonderfully well in this house, but a Blue-backed Manakin was bred here in the 1970s.
I think the house was used to display some of Walter Rothschild's many Giant Tortoises.
 
I'm sure I have written about this house in an old ZSL thread, but I can't find it, so I'll try to remember it all again. The house was not large and I think it had whitewashed walls and a glazed roof (or large roof lights at least). There was a central path with a little kerb on each side and then there was a little moat between the kerb and the shrubs. As I recall, this moat was only a few inches deep and about 18 inches wide, with clean water flowing over pebbles (it must have been circulated by a filter and pump).
On either side there were slightly raised beds for tropical shrubs such as hibiscus, but the planting was not dense, so it was quite easy to see the birds. Actually I don't remember any hummingbirds when I visited in the early 1970s, but I do remember small tropical birds such as white-eyes and particularly the beautiful blue-backed manakins which bred successfully in the house.

Alan
 
Last edited:
FBBird said:
I think the house was used to display some of Walter Rothschild's many Giant Tortoises.
Click to expand...

Incidentally, there is a photograph of Lord Rothschild riding one of his giant tortoises at London Zoo; this picture is (or at least was) available as a postcard in the Tring Zoological Museum shop.
 
Last edited:
gentle lemur said:
There was a central path with a little kerb on each side....
Click to expand...

When I was a very small child this house was divided into two separate aviaries, one each side of the central path, both separated from the visitor by glass windows; these windows were subsequently removed making it a ‘walk through’ exhibit.

I particularly remember that a humming bird’s nest was displayed in a small glass case on one of the end walls; this was there for many years.
 
@gentle lemur that sounds just as my father describes it.
thanks again for all the info, its greatly appreciated.
 
I was rather busy yesterday evening so didn’t have time to go through my collection of old London Zoo guidebooks but have had the opportunity to do so this evening; the following may be helpful to those interested in the history of the Tropical House / Humming Bird House.

• guides prior to 1928 refer to this building as the Tortoise House

• the 1928 guide refers to the building as a ‘greenhouse’ and states the tortoises will be moved to a building by the Monkey House

• the 1929 and subsequent guides refer to the building as the Tropical House

• the guides for 1929 to 1932 state the building is used for animals requiring moist heat

• according to the 1933 guide, the building will be used for American monkeys, sunbirds, tanagers, weaver birds and probably humming birds

• the guides for 1934 & 1935 state the building houses humming birds and other small brightly coloured birds like sunbirds

• according to the guides for 1937, 1938 & 1939 this building houses “one of the largest collections of humming birds to be seen in captivity” and some birds-of-paradise too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top