Travel: Jurong Bird Park (Singapore)

I love going to zoos and aquariums, so I had a hard time deciding whether I wanted to go to the Singapore Zoo, Jurong Bird Park, the Night Safari, or the River Safari.

I've been to San Diego's Zoo twice now, and from the Singapore Zoo TripAdvisor reviews, it sounded like it was of similar caliber and extra crowded. (I also didn't pack any zoom lenses for my camera!) I decided to save this for a future trip to Singapore.

I was intrigued by the Night Safari concept, but the TripAdvisor reviews seemed to indicate that it was extremely crowded and not much different than a regular zoo (but open at night time). I figured I wouldn't get many worthwhile photos at night, either!

Finally, the TripAdvisor reviews for the River Safari were not as favourable as the Night Safari, so it was a pass for me as well.

That left Jurong Bird Park, which has excellent TripAdvisor reviews. I've never been to a bird-dedicated park, so I was really excited to go!


Tickets and Travel

Ticket Price: $25 SGD per adult (they have a discount if you purchase online ahead of time, but for non-Singaporeans, it's only a 5% discount, so not really worth the trouble, IMO)

You can get to Jurong Bird Park via public transportation (MRT and bus), but takes about 90 minutes! Taxi, on the other hand, only takes about 20 minutes but costs more. We went for the taxi option since we were having a late start that morning. It cost us about $25-30 SGD (can't remember exactly), and there's a surcharge if you go during peak hours. There are also (not free) shuttle buses from various hotels (information here) that take up to 1 hour, but have a limited schedule.

We arrived about an hour after opening on a weekday and it was not that crowded at all. Although there were quite a lot of cute little school children on field trips.

We left via taxi as well. There's a taxi stand outside the park, and there was one there when we decided to leave (around 1PM, when it started getting a bit too hot and humid).


Picspam


We started at Penguin Coast:


Indoor penguin exhibit. Many school children came up on our heels shortly after this picture was taken.


Then to the Flamingo Pool:


Flamingos


Briefly through the Wetlands:





We probably took 100 pictures of these turtles and only a few turned out in focus, LOL.


Turtles


Onto Pelican Cove:


Pretty landscaping in the exhibits


Pelicans


My reflection meant I didn't get any good pictures of these fish.


Fish, and my reflection


Then into Parrot Paradise:


A lot of beautiful parrots


Cockatiel


Pretty Parrot


A lot of parrots.


Inside the Waterfall Aviary:


Manmade waterfall


Pretty decent waterfall


Waterfall


These guys were walking around inside one of the aviaries


We were inside this aviary when they were doing a bird feeding. For $2 SGD "donation", you can get a little cup of mealworms and birds will come down and rest on your arm and gobble them up.


Loved this gorgeous blue bird


Cory said the claws were sharp!


Such a cute little guy!


What a choice!


FYI, the Bird Discovery Centre (pictured below) HAS AIR CONDITIONING. We popped in here for a ten minute break.


This place had AC!!


Not a Cadbury miniegg


The "Dinosaur Descendants" exhibit:


Big burddd


Inside the Lory Loft aviary:


Cory has a series of ~50 pictures of him getting closer and closer to this lory.


Finally he flew away!


Sturdy suspension bridges within the aviary


Lory


Back outside, and onto the Hornbills and Toucans section. There was a little feeding happening here as we walked by:


Mmmm mealworms!


Om nom!


Quickly through the stinky Shore Birds section (sea birds smell so bad!!):


Having an itch


A few adorable owls in the "World of Darkness":


Cute snowy owl! I wonder how cold they have the temperature in there. I bet he's sad he's not in Canada.


Our point and shoot camera did a great job in here. Cory used my head as a tripod.


Finally, it got too hot to spend any more time here, and we headed out past some more penguins.


Penguins


Bottom Line: If you love zoos and aquariums as much as I do, I highly recommend Jurong Bird Park! I had a wonderful time here. They also have some large shows (Kings of the Skies Show and High Flyers Show), but we decided to skip those in favour of visiting the exhibits completely children free (under the assumption that all the school trip children would be at the shows -- our assumption provide to be correct!) The food did not look too appetizing, but that's OK, because we were headed to lunch next!