Visited today, previous visit was eight years ago. Some very good new enclosures, sadly let down by inadequate stocking, poor labelling or poor perching.
Magnificent tall aviaries at the entrance, one occupied by several Brahminy Kites. These have possibly the best flying accommodation of any aviary housed raptor that is not flown free. There was the feeling that other species could have been added to enhance this rather nice exhibit. The other of this pair of aviaries housed A LOT of Blue Peafowl, a mongrel Mallard-derived Domestic drake, a Muscovy mule, five or six White Chinese Geese and the star turn, about eight lovely Painted Storks. A weird mix that would have been better with wild waterfowl replacing the domestics, no peafowl…….
A rather nice set of lofty new primate enclosures was ruined by woefully inadequate perching, and poor labelling (‘Baboon’ for a Japanese Macaque which had its correct label as well, a single Long-tailed Macaque labelled ‘Lar Gibbon’, three more Long-tailed Macaques labelled ‘Ring-tailed Lemur’. An ‘endemic’ series of aviaries held Tarictic Hornbills (pair), single Luzon Bleedingheart, Black-chinned Fruit Dove, what I think was a Grey Imperial Pigeon, Pied Imperial, Black-chinned Fruit Dove, Moorhen, two Purple Swamphens and a Palawan Peacock Pheasant. So far, so good, BUT this area was padded out with a host of Barbary Doves, Domestic Pigeons and hybrid Golden x Lady Amherst’s Pheasants. A large pink sunburnt pig was in a shaded side area.
The purported Savannah area had one African Savannah animal, a very fine cock Ostrich, with a wonderful gloss on his feathers, plus some very non-African deer that were labelled as Visayan Spotted, but looked more like possible hybrids with Philippine Brown Deer. The only other animals visible on the Savannah (which had ‘Zebra’ signed) were two very handsome Grevy’s Zebra x Domestic Horse hybrids, with abundant fine striping on a glossy chestnut background.
The obviously new reptile house was a bit of an enigma in that many of its animals would be better outside in this climate, much of the accommodation just missed being rather good, the public part of the house was excessively cold and very noisy indeed.
As previously, for me the highlight of the place was numbers of free-flying wild Nankeen Night Herons with a few Black-crowned. Elephant, Hippopotamus and Giraffe were all signposted, as were Flamingos. None of those appeared to be present. The possibly elderly Hippo seen eating a big pile of potatoes on my previous visit had gone, as of course had Mali, the much pitied but well enriched and much loved Elephant.
A zoo with much potential, that could be greatly improved by better furnished and stocked enclosures!
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