Ueno Zoo Part IV: Shinobazu Pond

As previously mentioned, a long bridge connects the East and West Gardens of the Ueno Zoo. There's an emu enclosure towards the east end of the bridge, but not much else in terms of exhibits.

One of the first things one sees upon reaching the West Gardens is Shinobazu Pond (or at least, the quarter of it that sits within the zoo's perimeters). The pond is home to big flocks of wild great cormorants.

Some captive waterbirds live in or near the pond as well, such as these white pelicans.

An African spoonbill.

Some Inca terns. Their aviary was significantly taller than those of the other waterbirds, giving these aerialists more room to fly around.

More Inca terns with a waldrapp ibis and a Canada goose.

A Madagascar ibis.

A short distance from shore was a small island on which Steller's sea eagles were kept. (Presumably they have been rendered flightless one way or another.)

Another corner of the pond had a Madagascar theme, including displays for radiated tortoises, hedgehog tenrecs, and hissing cockroaches. Here's one that I have actual pictures for, Madagascar's largest mammalian predator alive today, the fossa.

You can't have a Madagascar exhibit without lemurs, naturally. There were many species here: ring-tailed lemurs, ruffed lemurs, brown lemurs, gray gentle lemurs... but most exciting for me were the aye-ayes. Aye-ayes are incredibly unusual creatures and this was the first time I'd seen any in real life. There was at least one kept in a diurnal exhibit (predictably, it was sleeping), but a few others had nocturnal exhibits, in which they were very active. That activity, combined with the darkness, made them difficult to photograph. This is one of my more successful efforts (so you can imagine how the others turned out!).

Ueno Zoo Part III: Bird House

Further into the East Garden of the Ueno Zoo, I came across a well-planted dhole exhibit. Dholes are not common in North American zoos in my experience, so it was a welcome sight.

There was a small nocturnal house nearby. Interestingly, this zoo is the second one I've been to that exhibits pangolins!

Other inhabitants of the nocturnal house included mouse deer, leopard cats, slow lorises, and Leschenault's rousettes. As it turns out, this was not the only nocturnal exhibit the zoo had, but we'll get to that down the line. Arguably of even greater interest, however, was the bird house next door.

Well... I did say most of the small animal exhibits looked decent. This cage contained a red-shouldered macaw. Large parrots are difficult to accommodate properly, but this still stands out rather negatively among otherwise presentable displays, especially the other (fairly large) enclosures in the bird house.

A shorebird exhibit. From left to right, the species visible in the picture are a wattled jacana, reeve, redshank, and Egyptian plover.

A southern bald ibis. This was part of a very large two-story display with many, many species.

This green turaco was another inhabitant of that display.

As were this spur-winged plover (left) and blacksmith plover (right).

As the "two-story high" factoid would suggest, there was a second floor to the bird house. From this higher vantage point I also saw a great slaty woodpecker, the largest unequivocally extant woodpecker in the world!

There was also this bearded barbet.

Another two-story exhibit (of which I don't have first-story photos) included this blue-throated piping guan.

More Palawan peacock pheasants, this time including a female. The peacock-like "eyespots" on the male are also more visible here than in my previous photo of one.

A flock of Fischer's lovebirds. Despite the language barrier, general reactions I noticed suggested that visitors were quite taken with these fellows.

A poor photo of a crested partridge.

A male paradise whydah with a female in the background. Interestingly, they were kept with common waxbills, which some whydahs are brood parasites of. I wonder whether this was an attempt to stimulate breeding in the whydahs.

Some blue-breasted quail were also present in that display.

This exhibit had two local kingfisher species living in it, a ruddy kingfisher...

... and a common kingfisher.

They had a pond well stocked with small fish to fish from.

Somewhat strangely, the centerpiece of the bird house was not a bird exhibit at all, but a southern tamandua! I'm not complaining; I've only seen tamanduas before at the Woodland Park Zoo (and I believe they were northern tamanduas). This one also had an outdoor exercise area just outside the bird house, with a large tree for it to climb (up to a certain height at least, at which point they had encircled the tree trunk with metal sheets, presumably to prevent escape).

Not far from the bird house proper were some outdoor aviaries. Here's a laughing kookaburra with only its head visible.

A great blue turaco, both comical looking and magnificently striking.

A secretary bird. This long-legged raptor is always good to see.

As the sign in the above photos hints, one of its neighbors was a black-necked crane.

On my way towards the West Garden, I passed through an arctic-centered exhibit, with displays for polar bears, seals, and sea lions. There was also a series of ptarmigan enclosures showing birds at different stages of their seasonal molt, which I thought was fairly ingenious.

Ueno Zoo Part II: Raptors

Continuing on with my trip to the Ueno Zoo, I came to an enclosure for Eurasian otters. Otters almost never fail to put up a good showing, especially if they're awake.

I found this an interesting exhibit design: a water tank extending out from the main enclosure so visitors can have an underwater view of the otters.

Nearby were another row of aviaries, focused on raptors this time. If it sounds like this zoo has a lot of aviaries, that's because it does. There's more to come. I would even say that the bird collection here is reason enough to visit, but this is a maniraptor blog. First of all, a snowy owl.

A northern goshawk. This may be the first time I've seen one.

A Japanese sparrowhawk. Almost certainly the first time I've seen one. This exhibit also contained Eurasian kestrels.

A greyish eagle owl with a barn owl in the background. I was momentarily surprised that these two would share an exhibit, as I more commonly associate the name "eagle owl" with the much larger Eurasian eagle owl, which has a penchant for preying on other raptors.

A forest eagle owl, yet another first for me.

Some white-backed vultures.

They shared their aviary with this white-tailed sea eagle. There is a lot of talk about the ethics of keeping cetaceans in captivity, and for good reason, but large raptors often look almost as restricted in captive settings to my eye. Free-flight shows may be the best we can do to replicate their wild behaviors for the time being, but at least the ones at the Ueno Zoo are given fairly large cages (similar to the ones I saw at the Asahiyama Zoo last year).

A mountain hawk eagle, fairly impressive looking.

I hadn't expected to see an Andean condor here, so it was a pleasant surprise.

A common buzzard.

Ueno Zoo Part I: East Garden Entrance

Japanese zoos generally don't have great reputations when it comes to quality animal care, especially compared to many of the world-class zoos we have in North America, but Ueno Zoo has modernized decently. A number of enclosures for larger animals felt a tad small and sometimes drab, but most of the small animals (which I tend to be more interested in) looked like they had adequate homes.

The zoo is sharply divided into East and West Gardens (connected by a long bridge), the main entrance leading into the East Garden. Among the first exhibits one can visit upon entering is a series of aviaries containing native Japanese birds. I tend to like exhibits that showcase native fauna (and have been to one zoo/museum that does almost nothing but). The inhabitants are not always the most charismatic of species, but I find that the general public doesn't always have the best understanding of the species it share its own neighborhoods with. On top of that, many species exhibited in these displays can be highly unfamiliar to foreigners (like me) and thus make for interesting sights by that simple virtue alone. This bird here is a Lidith's jay and, as it happens, it's not a species I would expect even a Tokyo native to know, as it's found in the wild only on two of the Ryukyu Islands.

A white-breasted waterhen. I've seen these in the wild before, but in typical rail fashion you're more likely to hear them first (in spite of their bold color patterning compared to most other rails).

A rock ptarmigan.

An azure-winged magpie. I'd hoped to see these in the wild on my trip because my field guide to Japanese birds claimed that they were "common" in Tokyo, but I didn't have much luck there. The field guide was published in 1982, so it is understandably dated in some respects. For instance, a pamphlet I received at the Tokyo Port Wild Bird Park had many discrepancies from the field guide in terms of bird distribution and abundance. (The azure-winged magpie is said to be "fairly common", for what it's worth.) Yet, from a cursory Google search, it appears that my book is still among the best when it comes to English field guides to Japanese birds.

A Eurasian jay.

Its cage was also accessible by fellow acorn lovers, Japanese squirrels.

The wire tunnel leading to the main squirrel enclosure.

A few of the other aviaries exhibit smaller passerines, but most of those birds proved too active to be easily photographed.

There was a little island with waterfowl inhabitants (and big flocks of wild Eurasian tree sparrows that would take their share of food). From left to right: Canada goose, swan (I do not remember the exact species), and emperor goose (partially hidden behind foliage).

Some prairie dogs. They have a tunnel system cross-sectioned by a viewing window so guests can see inside, but they were content to stay above ground on my visit.

An example of the zoo's more subpar enclosures with this cramped- and drab-looking exhibit for colobus monkeys. Sad to say, this was part of a row of monkey displays that didn't look much better than this.

Off in another corner near the zoo entrance is another series of aviaries, this time centered around gamebirds and pigeons. This is a bare-faced curassow.

A pied imperial pigeon, rather conspicuously colored for a forest bird.

A Palawan peacock pheasant. Neat.

Green pheasants (considered a subspecies of ring-necked pheasant by the zoo signage and my field guide), a Japanese endemic.

Australian brush turkeys, which are really megapodes and not turkeys.

Oh right, there is a giant panda exhibit in this part of the zoo as well. In general, I've never been much taken with charismatic megafauna to begin with, but giant pandas are even less of a draw when I can visit what is considered to be one of the best giant panda displays in the world for free a good chunk of the year. Giant pandas are interesting animals to be sure, but I find that they very much have a "seen them once, seen them all" quality. While crowdpleasing creatures may be important for overall zoo attendance, I've always been of the opinion that if you want to see some true rarities (in terms of ubiquity in zoos rather than in the wild, though both can apply), you go look at the smaller animals in the collection. That's not to say there aren't plenty of large animals that could use more representation in zoos, but space that could be spent on them are often used for more commonplace (again by zoo standards, not wilderness standards) crowdpleasers, whereas smaller clients are easier to accommodate with limited room. So skip the pandas I did.