• facebook
  • twitter
  • pinterest
  • 500px
  • instagram
  • flickr
  • google
  • rss

Travel To Eat

Look...Learn...Eat...Live

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Categories
    • Arabia
    • Belgium
    • Bridges and Buildings
    • California
    • Cathedrals & Churches
    • Clocks and Astrolabes
    • Colorado
    • Cooking and Recipes
    • Egypt
    • Ethiopia
    • Events
    • Food and Drinks
    • France
      • Versailles
      • Paris
      • Rouen and Normandy
    • Plants and Gardens
    • History
    • Jewels and Jewelry
    • Las Vegas
    • London
    • Maps
    • Monument
    • Museums
      • Painting
      • Sculpture
      • The Louvre
      • British Museum
    • Portugal
    • Restaurant Reviews
    • Rome
    • This and That
  • Blog
  • Glossary

October 5, 2018 by Kurt Buzard Leave a Comment

Bloedel Aviary and Conservatory in Vancouver

Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata)

Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata)

When we visited Vancouver, we came across the most amazing little conservatory. The Bloedel Conservatory is essentially a large bird cage located at the peak of Vancouver in Queen Elizabeth Park. There are 120 exotic mainly tiny birds and over 500 kinds of tropical plants inside the dome. This elaborate cage for the birds and plants reveals something very ancient and primal to humans, the desire to bring the outdoors inside. In this case, these are exotic birds and plants that would not survive in the relatively harsh climate of Vancouver but even in antiquity local birds were kept by the wealthy, in particular for harems and by mariners to find land in the open sea. In medieval Europe, bird keeping was mostly for the wealthy. Kings, Queens and the Clergy would often keep parrots. The Sumerians, the oldest civilization known to have kept written records, had a word, subura, for birdcage. Do we bring birds inside our homes because we are unable to enter theirs? Do we try to tame wild nature because we fear we can never tame our own? These bits of philosophy are thanks to a beautiful essay on caged birds by Jerry Dennis, found below. For the purpose of this post, I thought we would just enjoy these birds, in one of the best settings for an aviary I have yet to see.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Animals, Aquariums and Zoos, Birds, Canada and Alaska, Plants and Gardens Tagged With: African Grey Parrot, Amazon Lily, Aviary, birdcage, Birds, Bloedel Conservatory, Blue-and-Yellow Macaw, Budgie, Canada, Canary, Cut Throat Finch, Eclectus Parrot, Estrildid Finches, Long Tailed Finch, Nepenthes mirabilis, Owl Finch, Parakeet, plants, Plum Headed Finch, Plumeria, Society Finch, Star Finch, Umbrella White Cockatoo, vancouver, Zebra Finch

June 2, 2015 by Max Distro LLC Leave a Comment

Auckland Zoo, The Birds, New Zealand

Auckland Zoo, New Zealand

Auckland Zoo, New Zealand

New Zealand has many unique native fish, insects, lizards, frogs and of course, birds. The only native mammals are bats and marine mammals. New Zealand was one of the last habitable land masses to be settled in the Pacific. Migrants sailed in double-hulled canoes from East Polynesia, the last voyages in the exploration and settlement of the Pacific Islands, in several waves before 1300. They brought with them the Polynesian Rat (Kiore) and the domesticated dog. Europeans later brought pigs, ferrets, stoats, mice, rats, dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, and many other mammals which have seriously impacted the native animals, driving some near to extinction. Over the 65 million year isolation from any other land mass, New Zealand became a land of birds. When Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the bird songs were deafening. Māori and European settlement has been the cause of a huge decline in the numbers of birds and the extinction of over 40% of the 115 or more of the native endemic species, found only in New Zealand.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Animals, Aquariums and Zoos, New Zealand Tagged With: Auckland Zoo, Birds, Brolga, Cassowary, Coots, Crakes, Crested Pigeon, Emu, Flamingo, Gallinules, Kiwi Bird, Kūkupa, Moa, New Zealand, New Zealand Bellbird, New Zealand Brown Teal, New Zealand Wood Pigeon, Ostrich, Pāteke, Pūkeko, Rallidae, Ratites, Takahē, Tui, Zebra Finch

Search the Site

Site Tags

Africa Ancient Egypt Auckland Australia Birds Birdwatching Botswana British Museum California Cappadocia Cathedrals & Churches Colorado Costa Rica Denver Eiffel Tower Flowers France Garden Istanbul Kunsthistorisches Museum Kurt Buzard MD Larco Museum Las Vegas Lima London Louis XIV Madagascar Mesopotamia Montreal Museums Napoleon I Napoleon III Nevada New Zealand Normandy Painting Paris Peru Restaurant Sculpture Sydney The Louvre Tomatoes Turkey Vienna

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Twitter

Welcome to Travel to Eat

This website has been redesigned from the ground up to make it easier for you, the reader to find posts that might interest you. Just click on a photo to select the topic or the blog for the most recent posts

Buzardweb@gmail.com

Civilization

Every society has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it unique. Because ancient civilizations continue to influence us today, and because I love history, I have devoted many posts to prehistory and ancient civilizations.

About the Blog

This blog is a collection of my thoughts on places, things and places, that I find interesting. There are no advertisements, no cookies and I do not share your email address with anyone. I hope you enjoy your visit and I hope you will return and leave a comment.

Copyright © 2019 · Travel To Eat · Built on the Genesis Framework