Avifauna Bird Park

Avifauna opened at Alphen aan den Rijn in 1950 and is one of the older bird parks in Europe, laid out as a landscaped garden with ponds, streams and planting rather than a row of aviaries, holding several hundred species - flamingos, pelicans, storks, penguins, birds of prey, parrots and a large tropical hall with free-flying birds. It runs European breeding programmes for a number of threatened species and has been involved in reintroduction work. Flight demonstrations run daily. The park is family-oriented with a boat trip on the Oude Rijn and playgrounds, and it is one of the standard Dutch outings for young children. Archeon, the archaeological open-air museum, is in the same town, and the two are often combined. Alphen sits in the Groene Hart between the four big cities.

What you actually see

• Several hundred bird species - flamingos, pelicans, penguins and raptors.
• A garden layout - ponds and planting rather than rows of aviaries.
• A tropical free-flight hall - birds loose in a planted glasshouse.
• Breeding programmes - European work on threatened species.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

Busy in school holidays. Flight demonstrations run at set times. It is a bird collection, with the questions that raises about keeping birds. Combined with Archeon it is a long day.

Nearby

Archeon is in the same town; Leiden is west and Gouda south.