Flamingos, night herons, pelicans and monkeys

On 30 October 2017, to Blijdorp zoo in Rotterdam. Just past the entrance, conspicuous autumn leaves with beautiful colours.

They contrasted well with the palish pink of the greater flamingos in that compound. A bird of that species became fifty years old here.

Two male and two female eider ducks on the bank or swimming in the moat.

Blijdorp is not just a place with zoo collection animals, it attracts wild birds as well. On the meadow behind the flamingos, a juvenile black-crowned night heron. Probably, that youngster was born here this year. Night herons are very rare in the Netherlands. They have only a few nesting colonies: mainly in Artis Zoo in Amsterdam; and here in Blijdorp. At these two colonies, the night herons benefit from feeding times for zoo animals.

So do grey herons, and herring gulls. As we arrived, one individual from each species sat on a roof not far away.

A male mallard. Moorhens on the grass behind the flamingos.

Two Egyptian geese fly overhead, calling.

Then, we see another night heron. Not the youngster of minutes ago, but an adult bird up on a tree.

We move on, to the part of Blijdorp about Asia. After passing Japanese cranes, we arrive at a hide with as its theme birdlife of the Amur river in Siberia. The names of the bird species one can see here are in both Dutch and Russian.

The biggest birds here are Dalmatian pelicans. The photo shows a young bird.

The other birds, apart from pelicans, which one can see from this hide, named on the hide signs, though their species live in Siberia as well, are mainly wild Rotterdam area birds. Like mallards, moorhens and great cormorants.

We leave the hide.

We hear a ring-necked parakeet call: a species living in the wild in the Netherlands since decades.

Next, lion-tailed macaques. Adults and a youngster. Unfortunately, these monkeys are threatened in their south-west Indian biotope.

Stay tuned for more on this blog on that day!

What do captive flamingos do at night, when their zoo or wildlife park is closed? Without the threat of predators and with food provided, it’s easy to imagine they would just stand on one leg, snoozing. But research by the University of Exeter shows captive flamingos do more foraging and roam more widely in their enclosure at night than in the day: here.