This was my second visit to the Penang Bird Park. My previous visit in 2014 is recounted here: Penang Bird Park - Penang Bird Park, 13 April 2014
The Penang Bird Park is one of my favourite animal collections in southeast Asia. Jurong is undoubtably better as a bird collection, but Penang is much better than the KL Bird Park. And I prefer Penang over most of the zoos I've visited too. I am a bird person, of course, but even so it is just so much easier to spend time amongst the aviaries. I spent three hours there on this visit, and it's only a five acre site. Compare that with my four hours at the 360-acre Songkhla Zoo. Partly that was due to the condition of Songklha now, but also because Penang is vastly more interesting.
I won't cover too much of the same ground as the 2014 review, but for this visit I discovered that the buses to get there from the station at Butterworth (just by the ferry terminal for Penang Island) are now numbers 709 and 703. Last time it was bus number 209. The route is exactly the same now on the 709 so I think they have just changed the numbering system (either that or I was confused last time and thought 709 was 209 somehow). Anyway, it is two Ringgits for the fare and it takes about twenty minutes, followed by a five minute walk. On the return I caught the 203 bus which took twice as long on a meandering route back to the station.
The basics of the Bird Park remain the same. Two of the aviary blocks (the first primarily for peacock-pheasants and the second for cockatoos) are now glass-fronted. I can't actually remember if they were mesh or glass before to be honest. However the reflections off the glass are terrible. As I mentioned in the last review, there are some difficulties in viewing the birds due to glare off the mesh, and glass fronts are ten times worse. However, it's the tropics - I think the only way around glare would be to put awnings over all the paths to cut out the sun.
The duck collection has decreased dramatically, for reasons I'm unclear on. The pheasant collection is as large as previously, and the parrot collection has increased by a few species. A fantastic new addition to the collection is a pair of helmeted hornbills, currently separated in adjoining aviaries. They are absolutely magnificent!
There is a nice waxbill and whydah aviary where I spent quite a bit of time trying to see all the species (I missed a couple). The aviary was mostly quite sparsely-furnished but at one end was a large plant in which most of the species I wanted to see were perched - and the plant was right behind all the signage which obscured the view! Almost all the waxbills and whydahs on the species list (after this post) were in this aviary, although many were also in one of the walk-through aviaries.
There are now three walk-through aviaries (last time two). Of the two which were there previously, one is much better now, with the turkeys and ring-necked pheasants inhabiting it having been replaced with a much more varied collection including flocks of pigeon species. The second walk-through aviary was lessened for me, though, because that was the one which on my 2014 visit had large numbers of ashy minivets and drongo cuckoos, all now gone. The aviary is still good - it has lots of red-whiskered bulbuls and other birds, but those other two species really made it special. The third (new) walk-through aviary is probably the best of the three, being heavily-planted and able to be viewed on two levels. There were 27 species signposted, mostly passerines, although I didn't see them all. (In the species list which follows I have added separate individual lists for these three aviaries).
The Penang Bird Park is one of my favourite animal collections in southeast Asia. Jurong is undoubtably better as a bird collection, but Penang is much better than the KL Bird Park. And I prefer Penang over most of the zoos I've visited too. I am a bird person, of course, but even so it is just so much easier to spend time amongst the aviaries. I spent three hours there on this visit, and it's only a five acre site. Compare that with my four hours at the 360-acre Songkhla Zoo. Partly that was due to the condition of Songklha now, but also because Penang is vastly more interesting.
I won't cover too much of the same ground as the 2014 review, but for this visit I discovered that the buses to get there from the station at Butterworth (just by the ferry terminal for Penang Island) are now numbers 709 and 703. Last time it was bus number 209. The route is exactly the same now on the 709 so I think they have just changed the numbering system (either that or I was confused last time and thought 709 was 209 somehow). Anyway, it is two Ringgits for the fare and it takes about twenty minutes, followed by a five minute walk. On the return I caught the 203 bus which took twice as long on a meandering route back to the station.
The basics of the Bird Park remain the same. Two of the aviary blocks (the first primarily for peacock-pheasants and the second for cockatoos) are now glass-fronted. I can't actually remember if they were mesh or glass before to be honest. However the reflections off the glass are terrible. As I mentioned in the last review, there are some difficulties in viewing the birds due to glare off the mesh, and glass fronts are ten times worse. However, it's the tropics - I think the only way around glare would be to put awnings over all the paths to cut out the sun.
The duck collection has decreased dramatically, for reasons I'm unclear on. The pheasant collection is as large as previously, and the parrot collection has increased by a few species. A fantastic new addition to the collection is a pair of helmeted hornbills, currently separated in adjoining aviaries. They are absolutely magnificent!
There is a nice waxbill and whydah aviary where I spent quite a bit of time trying to see all the species (I missed a couple). The aviary was mostly quite sparsely-furnished but at one end was a large plant in which most of the species I wanted to see were perched - and the plant was right behind all the signage which obscured the view! Almost all the waxbills and whydahs on the species list (after this post) were in this aviary, although many were also in one of the walk-through aviaries.
There are now three walk-through aviaries (last time two). Of the two which were there previously, one is much better now, with the turkeys and ring-necked pheasants inhabiting it having been replaced with a much more varied collection including flocks of pigeon species. The second walk-through aviary was lessened for me, though, because that was the one which on my 2014 visit had large numbers of ashy minivets and drongo cuckoos, all now gone. The aviary is still good - it has lots of red-whiskered bulbuls and other birds, but those other two species really made it special. The third (new) walk-through aviary is probably the best of the three, being heavily-planted and able to be viewed on two levels. There were 27 species signposted, mostly passerines, although I didn't see them all. (In the species list which follows I have added separate individual lists for these three aviaries).