Easter Holiday Fun – 23 March – 16 April
Birdland is proud of its captive breeding programmes.
This Easter, discover the different breeding strategies animals have adopted to survive in the avian world and meet some of our new arrivals in the Birdland Nursery.
At the indoor Discovery Zone, you can meet animals that lay eggs from fish to amphibians and reptiles to mammals. Don’t miss the special incubators where you can watch eggs hatching and see chicks take their first steps.
There’s also a fantastic Easter Quiz trail around the 9 acres of Park and Gardens.
Daily Talks & Feeding Displays for Easter will include: Flamingo’s at 11.30, Meet the Keeper and enjoy some Close Encounters with some hand’s on fun at 12.15, Penguin Feeding is at 2.30pm followed by the Pelicans at 3.15pm.
Egg-tastic Facts that you may discover on a visit this Easter:
- Burrowing Owls burrow underground where several eggs will be laid, away from prying eyes.
- The Flamingos build a nest cone of mud up to a foot high to protect their single egg from flooding.
- Female pheasants make a scrape on the floor and lay up to 8 eggs which they will incubate and hope that their dull coloured plummage will help camouflage them
- Pigeons build a flimsy nest on a platform of twigs and lay 2 eggs.
- Parrots will find holes in trees in which to nest.
- Female Cassowaries are possibly one of the laziest of bird mothers, she will lay eggs in the nests of several males then leave them to incubate and rear the young.
- Possibly the most committed mother is the female Trumpeter Hornbill, she will seal herself into a cavity in a tree (or a nest box at Birdland) using mud, droppings and saliva. She will leave a narrow gap through which the male can feed her for the following three months whilst she lays eggs, incubates them and hatches the chicks. Once the chicks are full size they will then break out
