Bronx Zoo Lila Acheson Wallace World of Birds

M

Miniaturezoo954

Well-Known Member
Being a Birdlover, has made me fall in love with this spectacular building, every zoo that i have visited i spend a considerable amount of time studying their bird exhibits, and especially birdhouses.
Nothing wrong with great mesh aviary's like San Diego's or even my own local zoo's Wings of Asia, but i especially like the buildings, the artistic arquitecture and mixed of bird species really makes a fantastic match in my eyes.
Until now the Lila Acheson Wallace World of Birds is the Bronx zoo, is in my opinion the World's greathest building dedicated to birds alone.
Berlin Zoo's birdhouse is not a match,(i hear that the zoo might make a new one) Frankfurt's zoo birdhouse, not a match, Antwerp is not even close, and i have never visited London, but for what i have seen in pics and videos of their birdhouse i think is not even close.

The Bronx Zoo's bird building was built in 1971-72 and at 25 bird habitats is massive, the detail is excellent, from the plants, to the murals in the walls, so the massive list of bird species, back then i read it had 500 birds of 200 different species, i wonder how many are there today?, maybe somebody outhere in this forum has the answer?, whatever this number is, i'm sure it makes it the biggest bird building in the United States.

So based on this i was shocked after reading some sections of snowleopard's epic reviews, where he basically places the National Zoo's birdhouse over the Bronx's, now this is very interesting for me, because that is one Zoo here in the country where i live, that i have not visited, until recently i really had no intention of visiting this zoo, based on the horrible reviews it gets from the average visitor, but none of us in this forum i believe are your average zoo visitor, so i'm planing a trip to the nation's capital in late July, and one of my stops will be the Zoo.

I really do not know what to expect, and having reviewed every single piece of information outhere in the web about the Zoo, and especially the birdhouse, logic tells me, that it is close to impossible that this birdhouse is better that the Bronx's, in what way? it looks smaller, the birds listed in the website seem like very few species, the layout looks very simple compared to the bronx, less plants, no murals, so i plead with Snowleopard to explain his reason's behind calling this birdhouse one of the best of its kind in the country, if it is his own opinion and taste, then i'm fine with that, we all have our selective preferences, but if there is reason behind this, i would love for him or any other member that has visited this zoo (National Zoo in DC) to explain the details about this bird building, the website might just be very outdated, and maybe they only keep half of the birds listed.

And my second question, does anybody have an exact number of how many bird species the World of Birds in the Bronx currently houses.
 
I have great respect for Snowleopard's views on all things "zoo," but can't for a second imagine how he could find National Zoo's Birdhouse superior in any way to World of Birds.

WOB was revolutionary when it opened, and although showing its age is still--as you say--the single best "bird house" anywhere.

But there are certainly far less than 200 species on exhibit there now--I'd guess it's closer to 50-60.
 
I love large, walk-through aviaries, and San Diego has some marvellous ones. The "Great Flight Aviary" at the Melbourne Zoo is brilliant, as is the spectacular "Wings of Asia" at Miami Metrozoo. I found the National Zoo's aviary to be quite impressive, and feel that Omaha's 4-acre aviary has tremendous potential but when I visited it appeared rather rundown and old. Not being a huge bird fan, I'd much rather stroll through a walk-through aviary than peer at bird exhibits within the confines of a building.

At the National Zoo in Washington, D.C, there is quite an extensive bird collection. A walk-through aviary is indoors, along with a nocturnal kiwi house. Outdoors there are a series of large bird enclosures, and the "Great Flight Exhibit" aviary is extremely pleasant to walk through. It has nothing on Miami or San Diego, but still one of the better aviaries in North America. The World of Birds at the Bronx Zoo definitely has its rabid fans, but it appeared dated to me and I believe it is entirely enclosed from the outside world.
 
Thank you, i have a great amount of respect for the men and his reviews as well, he was correct 100% about San Diego, and i agree for the most part with his Florida roadtrip, but it was just a question that needed to be asked, and at the end, i'm almost positive, that it is just his opinion and taste, but the fact is that snowleopard appears a men of statistics, so i would love for him to explain how this two match up?

Have you visited the National Zoo's birdhouse Reduakari? i"m not sure by your answer if you are telling me that in fact you have been there, and it can't even be compared to the World of Birds.

And about the species number, i would still like some confirmation of this, i knew that it would be impossible for them today to still have 200 species, but i was thinking back to my trip, and looking at pics, and i could have believed that the number would be much higher than 50 or 60, maybe about 90 to 100 species? can you imagine what this mega structure must have looked like back in those days with 200 species? I know there are members in this forum that were probably around back then to see this, i would love for one of them to come foward and tell us his experience, then again maybe he was just a kid back then.
 
"I love large, walk-through aviaries, and San Diego has some marvellous ones. The "Great Flight Aviary" at the Melbourne Zoo is brilliant, as is the spectacular "Wings of Asia" at Miami Metrozoo. I found the National Zoo's aviary to be quite impressive, and feel that Omaha's 4-acre aviary has tremendous potential but when I visited it appeared rather rundown and old. Not being a huge bird fan, I'd much rather stroll through a walk-through aviary than peer at bird exhibits within the confines of a building.

At the National Zoo in Washington, D.C, there is quite an extensive bird collection. A walk-through aviary is indoors, along with a nocturnal kiwi house. Outdoors there are a series of large bird enclosures, and the "Great Flight Exhibit" aviary is extremely pleasant to walk through. It has nothing on Miami or San Diego, but still one of the better aviaries in North America. The World of Birds at the Bronx Zoo definitely has its rabid fans, but it appeared dated to me and I believe it is entirely enclosed from the outside world.
22 Minutes Ago 03:44 AM"


I think i understand your points well enough to know what happened when you wrote the review, correct me if i'm wrong, i should have known part of this when i read in the review that birds were not your strong point. What you liked about the National Zoo's birdhouse and areas sorrounding it, was that one was indoors the other outdoors, and it was diverse enough to keep you entertained in a part of the Zoo that you would usually not enjoy as much as others, and this is exactly what killed you in part on the World of Birds, the size of the building itself must of made it difficult for you, to appreciate it, too much of not your favorite thing, and it had no outdoor areas, so add that in, you probably just strolled thru it, and did not stayed there to study every detail? Well i have to tell you that your answer was pretty much what i was afraid of, that is not good news for me, because this means, that the National zoo's birdhouse will be as expected, small, and very few species.

I understand what you mean about the aviary's in San Diego and Wings of Asia, but there is nothing for me, as seeing a whole collection of birds in one single place, imagine if they mixed all the species in San Diego in one massive aviary, that would be a sight, in December i travel to Singapore and i think that this might be my best bird experience yet.
 
Besides Miamis giant aviary, World of Birds is my favorite bird house I have been to. I like Riverbanks birdhouse more than Nationals.
 
The Bird House at the National Zoo is nice but nowhere near World of Birds. I am really interested in birds, zoos, and exhibit design, so I tend to spend longer at exhibits than the "average" zoo-goer; at the bird houses I tend to stay even longer, often to the dismay of the people in my group as nobody else seems to enjoy the birds as much as I do.

Ok, let me start out with a brief review of the National Zoo's Bird House. It is what I feel to be a traditional style building in which the exhibits have been modernized (I have no idea if this is true, but that's how I feel). It is roughly a large square, with the indoor flight room located in the middle. There is no second level portion to the building except for the ramp which goes up into the indoor flight room, giving you a higher vantage point of that exhibit. That pathway then extends outdoors where you can enter the large outdoor flight exhibit or continue around the outside of the building to view other bird species. Barriers are always utilized to separate the birds from visitors (and the visitors from the birds), and are almost always piano wires, except for glass in one case. The exceptions to the barriers are the indoor flight room, the large outdoor flight area, and one small-ish exhibit for plumed whistling ducks.

Now comes the part where I'm going to get subjective. I feel like the National Zoo's Bird House follows a theme more along the lines of making visitors feel like they are in a "garden" and the birds are all inhabitants in said garden. There is little or no attempt to replicate natural foliage, and the plants in all the exhibits are basically the same. To a plant novice like myself all the plantings seem to be the stereotypical exotic plants that one could find at a local nursery. The one exception to recreating natural habitats that sticks out in my mind is a small-ish exhibit for a pair of Burrowing Owls. Now in no way are the birds unhappy in these exhibits, I'm just saying that they do little to help visitors appreciate the wild places these animals come from. I just feel that average zoo visitors walk away from the Bird House with the feeling that all birds in the entire world live in jungle/rainforest areas.

One such example that I feel sums up the difference between the World of Birds and National Zoo's Bird House is their Weaver exhibits. The National Zoo exhibits Southern Masked-Weavers, specifically one pair. Their exhibit is basically a tall square with one ficus tree placed in the middle. This is a shocking difference to the Weaver exhibit in World of Birds, where one can see a busseling colony of Taveta Golden Weavers in a replicated dry riverbed exhibit, along with White-throated Bee-eaters, Carmine Bee-eaters, Red Bishops, Speckled Mousebirds, and some type of purple Sunbird, if not other species also. Now you let me know which you think gives visitors a better impression of a weaver's natural habitat and behaviors...

There are some interesting species in the National Zoo's Bird House. The Kiwi is an interesting bird to watch (if you can actually see it). The viewing area for the kiwi exhibit is roughly a small viewing blind, of which there is no build-up for visitors to adjust their eyes to the darkness. I would suggest standing in there for at least 5 minutes before you even attempt to locate the kiwi.

Another great exhibit is the one that they used to have immediately inside the doors to the Bird House. This exhibit housed Micronesian Kingfishers with Guam Rails and did a great job to educate visitors about the plight of these endangered birds on their homeland of Guam (if the visitors read the signs). One way to encourage visitors to become more interested in reading the graphics was the placement of a Brown Tree Snake in a plexiglass box inside the bird's exhibit. Many people seem to wonder "what is a snake doing inside the bird house?" so the zoo made a graphic which explains just that. I'd read that they moved these animals so I'm not sure if they're still exhibited in this same way.

The outdoor exhibits are also great, I enjoy the crane exhibits, cassowary, south america flight runs, and the large flamingo colony. The outdoor flight exhibit seems, at best, poorly planned. The walking path has you walk up a rather steep hill into the center of the exhibit only to turn around and walk back down. There are no species in there that really interest me and I feel that the railings, pathways, and rockwork are all showing their age.

So in my opinion World of Birds is a much better exhibit in terms of collection, exhibition techniques, mixed species exhibits, layout, and themeing. But by no means should you skip the National Zoo's Bird House. If you like birds you will enjoy yourself there. Hope you find my info helpful and enjoy your trip!
 
I agree Bronx's bird house is better than National's. I have been to both zoos at least a half dozen times each and I can say I prefer World of Birds. I like the 2-story exhibits that have terrestrial and aboreal birds mixed. Also certain species (Golden headed quetzal, great blue tuaraco, Red bird of paradise) are so amazing and rare to see. Nationals kiwi are awesome but you never see them. I rather go to Columbus to see kiwi. National zoo has a great bird house but in my opinion is not quite as good as Bronx's.
 
Fkalltheway, that was a great review, excellent detail, and gives me a very good idea of what to expect. Let me tell you that in no way would i skip this birdhouse or any other for that matter, i'm much like you when it comes to birds, zoos and exhibit design, i was just extremely curious mainly because of snowleopard review that somehow the National Zoo's birdhouse was a hidden jewel, and somehow i couldn't tell from the videos, pictures and info available online, (it could have been possible), especially the part of being superior to World of Birds, an exhibit that in my opinion is the premier Birdhouse building in the world, (i have not seen one that is superior until now), but already in the post i understood that it was a combination of his own personal preferences and his lack of interest in bird exhibits.
But your review of the Smithsonian birdhouse gives me a great perspective and i'm sure i will enjoy it, knowing that my expectations will be set accordingly, the biggest downsize in my opinion is the collection, i was browsing their webpage and the current bird collection housed here is a little weak, definitely some rare species, but lacking any large hornbills, only one toucan species, one bird of paradise species, as example, Berlin Zoo's birdhouse would i believe describe your description of lacking the proper setting to go with the birds (Bronx espectacular plants, murals, etc)
no real define theme you might say, but what they have is an extremely diverse collection of birds, on par with Bronx or larger if i remember correctly, by the way do you know how many species are housed in the Bronx Zoo's world of birds?
their initial plans describe 200 species, but another member sugested a 50 to 60 ratio as of today (that was just his opinion, and not an official figure) last time i was there, i would have thought the species count was closer to 100, do you have any info on this? i'm trying to see how it stacks up with Berlin's birdhouse.
 
I think that the World of Birds is certainly a great bird exhibit. I remember seeing the bulwers pheasants there and the many other species, however I think that the Berlin bird house is superior in the number of species exhibited to that of the World of Birds although accomodation wise it is not as spectacular in appearance. The Frankfurt bird house is also well worth a visit with the shoebill and the pithacartes bird amongst other species on show on my last visit. In fact Germany has many fine bird houses with large numbers of avian species on show there.
 
"I think that the World of Birds is certainly a great bird exhibit. I remember seeing the bulwers pheasants there and the many other species, however I think that the Berlin bird house is superior in the number of species exhibited to that of the World of Birds although accomodation wise it is not as spectacular in appearance. The Frankfurt bird house is also well worth a visit with the shoebill and the pithacartes bird amongst other species on show on my last visit. In fact Germany has many fine bird houses with large numbers of avian species on show there"

I agree with you, the presentation of the World of Birds is what sets it apart, in the other hand the collection in Berlin Zoo's birdhouse is massive and i'm extremely interested in what is the final species count of Bronx to really compare it to other European Birdhouse collections i have visited,
The Frankfurt zoo's birdhouse is extremely attractive, a very different design than Berlin, but a less massive collection of birds, i believe they focused more in making their exhibits look very natural, yet a modern style of exhibition, i only visited Frankfurt's birdhouse twice, so they might have actually increased their collection, but Berlin's birdhouse, where i spent so many hours in so many visits, still gives me the feeling that they are the world's leading Birdhouse building, when it comes to collection.

Last i knew is that they were planing to built a new Birdhouse, and it was supposed to be something to rival anything ever done before when it comes to birds exhibited in building structures, and having the second strongest bird collection in the world, they sure could do it, but i wonder what really happened with this plan, maybe one of the very few German zoo forum members could help us, i should be visiting Berlin Zoo sometime in 2010.
 
Miniaturezoo, you should visit bird parks in Walsrode near Hamburg and Veldhoven in Holland. Both have far bigger collections than Berlin, Frankfurt or Bronx. Actually, you must go with a notebook not to forget all the species and subspecies...

In World of Birds I liked these signs of human destruction of birds' environment.

Especially one of last exhibits with development in Adirondacks. It was something incredibly honest - often we want people in tropics to protect rainforests, while taking it for granted that so-called First World can convert their own forests to farms and towns.

Overall, it is a great building.
 
Thank you Jurek7, i'm for sure going to research this two parks, maybe i could include at least one in my next trip to Europe, i'm particulary interested in collections that can be found in a single structure, a building in this case, i get a lot of research material and it is something that i truly enjoy, San Diego Zoo for example, has an excellent bird collection, but in many different enclosures thru out the zoo, i enjoy a single building like World of Birds a lot more, zoo housing design is one of my dear passions, so hopefully either of this two parks has a very large and complex zoo building.
take care
Danny
 
While I don't think WoB's is anything much to write home about, I would agree that it is probably one of the best bird exhibits out there. Unfortunately, most zoos just don't care about birds (Bronx included...see Aquatic Bird and Birds of Prey exhibits for proof of this).
 
snowleopard said:
I love large, walk-through aviaries, and San Diego has some marvellous ones. The "Great Flight Aviary" at the Melbourne Zoo is brilliant, as is the spectacular "Wings of Asia" at Miami Metrozoo. I found the National Zoo's aviary to be quite impressive, and feel that Omaha's 4-acre aviary has tremendous potential but when I visited it appeared rather rundown and old. Not being a huge bird fan, I'd much rather stroll through a walk-through aviary than peer at bird exhibits within the confines of a building.

At the National Zoo in Washington, D.C, there is quite an extensive bird collection. A walk-through aviary is indoors, along with a nocturnal kiwi house. Outdoors there are a series of large bird enclosures, and the "Great Flight Exhibit" aviary is extremely pleasant to walk through. It has nothing on Miami or San Diego, but still one of the better aviaries in North America. The World of Birds at the Bronx Zoo definitely has its rabid fans, but it appeared dated to me and I believe it is entirely enclosed from the outside world.
Click to expand...

I agree with so much of this that I figured I would just say that instead of typing something very similar.
 
From a bird perspective i'm sure that the large walk thru aviary's are a much proper enviroment, but reality is, that due to the climate of many zoos here in the US, and in Europe as well, a birdhouse or large building is necessary and there is no way around this, if you are going to exhibit birds from tropical climates (exam WOB), and i completely disagree that is nothing to write home about, if birds are not high in your priority list, then i understand where you coming from, but the size of their collection and incredible way of displaying it has yet to be rivaled, sure there is other excellent looking birdhouses, Riverbanks zoo has an excellent looking birdhouse and the Mcneil Avian Center (have not visited yet) looks in pics and videos just gorgeous, but they both have a very limited collection of birds compared to World of Birds, and the collections in other zoos, mainly European zoos that are bigger, lack a well designed and atractive exhibit,
all this depends i'm sure on who the visitor and what he might like, i for one enjoy complex zoo buildings, and very large collections, so the World of Birds is heaven for me, and something that i would write home many times about, in fact i think i did write to a friend about it via email.
 
And this is not to say, that you are not right in your statement of zoos do not invest like they maybe should in birds, but like all things done many years back WOB was at the time (based on what i have read) a jewel, and they invested a great amount of money for those times, can it be done better today? sure, and with the excessive amount of imagination that i have i can probably come up with a massive design in a week's time, but like you said, zoos will just not put all this money into a bird exhibit, a shame if you ask me, imagine what a state of the art, zoo birdhouse, with a world class collection could look like, where you could find, penguins in Antartica, rainforest replicated in details, deserts, tropical island settings for rare endangered birds, a large circular center exhibit, replicating the andes, where condors could soar, this and so much more could be done in the right zoo, but it would probably cost over 100 million dollars (what i see in my mind) and no zoo would take that chance, but maybe i'm wrong, i hope i'm.
 
From what I've found, Bronx Zoo has 228 bird species in it's entire collection as of a few years back...the site doesn't seem to say a date on when it was last updated, but it's an old version of ISIS but by zoo. Berlin only had 189 species in it's collection at the time that was posted. I don't know how many were actually in each bird house, that it does not say.

Hope that helped though...
 
Well i really can't comment on Bronx, and it could be just about right, but Berlin Zoo? i can garantee you, that this info is 100% wrong, if it goes back to the years following WW2, then i guess it could be right, since they were in the process of rebuilding their collection, but i dought you are talking that far back, in the 80"S their collection was already extremely diverse, and possibly, the bigest number of species in the world, by the early 90's they had well over 500 species of birds,

to give you an example in 1991 their bird species were 561, 2319 specimens, in 1992, 556 species, 2385 specimens.

Today of course as many zoos around the world, their collection of animal species has declined, including the birds, but they still hold over 380 bird species, at the zoo, that is a much bigger number than San Diego Zoo in America, the 1# collection of bird species in the USA.

Berlin Zoo has very large place of my heart, since it is very important to me, so i collect a great deal of info on it, mostly 80's and 90's as well as 2000 since i live there at the time, but going far down, you have to remember that the zoo was destroyed for the most part after the war, and most of the animals died, so they had to rebuilt their collection, not sure when this article of yours was written.

The Bronx Zoo World of Birds is unmatched in my opinion in the attention to detail, when replicating the bird habitats, but if you ever visit the Berlin Zoo Zoo's birdhouse, it would be a huge surprice for you to see the incredible amount of bird species they keep here.
 
I'm sorry, i just read the explanation about ISIS, that explains it, i have understood by other posts in this website that this site is extremely unreliable, especially when it comes to European Zoos, so the Bronx info could be right, but the Berlin info is as wrong as it gets.
 
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