After leaving the Singapore Zoo, I headed for the shuttle bus to get to Wildlife WEST and visit the newest (when I visited) park in the Mandai Wildlife Reserve – Bird Paradise! Here you enter a beautiful entrance featuring a waterfall, head past some shops and restaurants and finally enter the park. And it certainly has a very new feel to it, it looks modern and sleek, I really like the design and layout of the park. Bird Paradise opened officially at the end of 2023, and took the collection from the Jurong Bird Park (in another part of Singapore) and expanded with huge walk-through aviaries and a large collection, featuring over 3000 individual animals over hundreds of species. Birds are not generally my thing, the fear of being pooped on or swooped at by a flying bird generally steers me away from walk-through exhibits, but I’d come all the way to Singapore and already had the 4-park ticket so decided to take a few hours to visit.
Honestly, Bird Paradise really surpassed by expectations, I thought it was a great park and even though I was still convinced I was going to be pooped on every two mins, I saw some really cool birds that I’ve never seen or even heard of before. The collection certainly surpasses any bird collection at European zoos I’ve visited (but remember, my visits focus on giant pandas, so maybe that’s not fair to the rest of the zoos’ animals). And I think, aside from the pandas, this was where I got the best collection of photos from in the Mandai Wildlife Reserve. I ended up with under 3 hours for my visit, and I probably could have done with another 45min-1hour of time as I didn’t get to the Winged Sanctuary section, and would have liked more time at the Wings Of Asia section. There are also 2 bird presentations here, I made it to the Wings Of The World show later in the evening, but earlier in the day you can also catch the Predators On Wings. From the entrance I started with the Penguin Cove and then worked my way round in a clockwise direction which worked well but meant I spent less time on the last few aviaries.
Penguin Cove
First up is the Penguin Cove, this was an area that I’d seen a little about before my visit and was something I was looking forward to checking out. You enter the building and can view the penguins underwater here if they are swimming – sadly I didn’t see any but I think it would be a great view if there were! Here there was also a restaurant, with some very nice looking items, but I didn’t really have enough time to stop. You then work your way up and you can see the penguins on land at water level, this was where all of the penguins were when I visited. What I liked was that they also had a few seabirds in there too, giving a little realism to the space. I found it quite tricky viewing the penguins as all viewing is through glass which was quite splashed/had condensation on it. The underwater viewing is probably a better experience – so while it’s a cool space, along with some good educational signage, it’s not the best penguin viewing experience I’ve had.
Australian Outback
The Australian Outback was the first aviary section I came to, and the theming looks great here – I’ve not been to Australia, but having the Australian pack on the Planet Zoo game, this is just like the pieces available there XD I had a look online and there are 30 species from Australia living in this aviary – I definitely didn’t see 30, so there’s a challenge for next time! The website highlights the Golden-shouldered parrot which looks a beautiful colourful bird, that would have been stunning to see, but I did see some other highlights. Namely seeing a kookaburra, I’m not sure I’ve seen one before and it was beautiful. I also enjoyed seeing the contrast between the Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo and the Red-tailed black-cockatoo sitting together in the same tree. The emus were also great, and so furry – they were completely unfussed by the rain shower!
Mysterious Papua
While I had some knowledge of Australian bird species, I really had no idea what birds to expect in the Mysterious Papua aviary. Here there are 25 species living, ranging from tiny all the way up to cassowary (which I have seen before)! Again I didn’t see 25 different species here, but I think I did see quite a lot. I liked the pretty white ones, which were different imperial pigeon species, and the vibrant almost metallic colours of the Nicobar pigeons and the Trumpet manucodes. The Victoria crowned pigeons also stood out, the blue and red feather colours mix beautifully and love the almost lace-like feathers on their heads. Definitely some unique birds in this section!
Lory Loft
Next up was Lory Loft, and honestly I just thought it would be rainbow lorikeets that I’ve seen in a number of zoos, but who knew there were so many species of lory’s and lorikeet’s, and that they’re different species?! You learn something new every day! I didn’t spend a lot of time here because I just found there were a lot of birds in this specific aviary and I was feeling a bit stressed about getting pooped on, so I did take the short route through this one. There really were some fascinating colour combinations on some of these birds, the black and red striped ones, which may be Dusky lorys, were especially eyecatching among the usual green, red and blue combinations. I also saw another larger bird, pictured below, but didn’t see any identification for. A google image search suggests it may be a Bushy-crested hornbill, this bird in dark definitely stood out amongst the rainbow of colours of the lorys and lorikeets.
Songs Of The Forest
The Songs Of The Forest was an aviary for songbirds from Southeast Asia and from the website it looks like the main birds here are a lot of smaller ones. I didn’t see a lot hanging out near the walkways, so these guys mostly seemed to be keeping to themselves. The Santa Cruz ground dove was a very pretty bird, I love the purple/pink tones in the feathers with the cream chest and the almost-blue tones around the head, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Interestingly I also saw the Pesquet’s parrot here, which is native to New Guinea so perhaps I also saw them in that aviary too – sadly they are over-hunted for their feathers.
Amazonian Jewels
The Amazonian Jewels aviary celebrates over 30 species from Central and South America and I think this might be the aviary where I saw the most different species. While I don’t appear the have photographed the more colourful birds, the birds here were generally very colourful and many unique – look at the bright orange top half of the Andean cock-of-the-rock, what an unusual anatomy, completely different from any other bird I’ve ever seen. I also saw the Crimson-bellied parakeet, who had the red front feathers and green feathers on its wings, this one had a particularly soft and fluffy looking head too.
Crimson Wetlands
I don’t know if the Crimson Wetlands aviary is the biggest, but it certainly felt the largest when I was there – there’s a huge waterfall in it! In addition to the stunning flamingos, ibis and Roseate spoonbills there are also a number of different macaw species living here, but it was for sure all that pink that really stood out to me and really made for some great photos. It really looked like an amazing habitat and the wetland/march section to the left of the waterfall was incredibly realistic. This did feel like the busiest aviary, not sure where all the people were until this point of my visit, but the other spaces were all pretty quiet. I can see why this would be the most popular though!
Wings Of Asia
I didn’t get to spend much time in the Wings of Asia aviary, which really was my own fault – the entrance for this was next to the Sky Amphitheatre, so after the presentation there, many people automatically filtered out and into this aviary, making it incredibly busy so it wasn’t easy to look around much or get many photos. It does look amazing with the layered pond, and I did see some birds in here, although didn’t get close up photos. If I went back I would start at this side to make sure I could see something different and see the most of this beautiful and unique landscape for an aviary.
Heart Of Africa
The final area I visited was the Heart of Africa aviary. This was a pretty big aviary, with lots of different landscapes to look at along with over 80 species of birds, and I certainly saw a lot of them! I saw the most variety of coloured birds here, the reds, blues and yellows really popped. I liked the very red-chested bird, which is either a bearded barbet or double-toothed barbet according to Google images – the red just looks extra fluffy and soft. The walkways in this aviary gave different elevations through the trees so lots of different viewing options not just of the aviary itself but also beyond across the rest of the park.
Wings Of The World – Sky Amphitheatre
I watched the Wings Of The World Show in the Sky Amphitheatre – I thought I had seen a sign saying the showing wasn’t on that day, but I happened to get to the amphitheatre around the start time and people were walking in, so I definitely was at the right place at the right time! It’s a huge space, I’d say it was around 1/3rd full, there were plenty of seats so everyone could have been spread out and had a lot of space if they’d wanted. Of course, being in the centre is the most preferable and the front rows must have filled up quite early. I was maybe 2/3rds from the front and just off centre but I thought my view was still good. They had a pretty good range of birds on show here, and showed off a number of different skills that the different species were good at. I particularly liked seeing the hornbills and the toucan. At the end there was also the opportunity to go up to the front and take photos closer up with the flamingos and pelicans.
