Photos From Auckland Zoo

Cost: while it's probably a reasonable cost for the zoo, it's still quite expensive. If you're bringing kids the cost can add up very fast. Annual memberships are much more reasonable, if you think you'll be visiting more than three times a year. Worse, the mark-ups in the cafe and Zoo shop are enough to be noticeable, so you do not want to be stuck buying icecreams for everyone unless you have money to spare!

Endurance: The zoo takes two to three hours to walk around, and if it's summertime it can get very hot. There are quite a lot of water fountains around now, mostly disguised as koru sculptures, so keep an eye out for them and take advantage of shade. There's a picnic area with tables, trees and a bandstand rotunda near the tigers and orangutans which is a nice place to have lunch. Otherwise, make sure you grab breaks in the shady places and don't try and do it all without stopping.

Navigation: it's actually quite hard to get lost, as the zoo is pretty well laid out in a big circle. It is easy to miss exhibits though, especially everything between the Walkabout, Rainforest and Sea Lion exhibits. You can pick up a map for a couple of dollars at the entrance, and there are a few on boards around the zoo. If you want to see one of the Animal Encounters make sure you know where to go as they don't last long and you'll miss it if you aren't there when it begins.

Timing:The zoo opens at 9.30 am and most of the events and encounters run throughout the morning and early afternoon. Last admission is at 4.15pm. You are free to stay in the zoo until it closes at 5.30pm in summer (1 September to 31 May) or 5pm in winter (1 June to 31 August), but they won't let you in by this time.

Small children and animals: While the zoo is very child-friendly, there are a few animals and exhibits that you might want to avoid.
The Aussie Walkabout emus are very large and come right up to people looking for food, and can be very worrying.
The lions and tigers are well out of reach, but can also come right up to the glass - as they are also large, scary animals, they might upset some children. Usually they're just sleeping somewhere, though.
The macaws and Siamang gibbons are often extremely noisy, so if you hear them screeching or hooting, you might not want to go past them.
There a some peacocks wandering about, but these are pretty tame! They may want food though, so keep an eye on children with sandwiches.
Slightly older climbing children are most likely to get in trouble around the tiger pit, from themselves/falling, more than from the tigers, and on the giraffe viewing platform, if they want to get up on the wooden railings.
The spider house at the beginning of one end of the rainforest walk might be a nasty shock to arachnophobes, but you can easily go around it.

Apart from snakes, which aren't allowed in New Zealand because of the risk to the native birds if a snake got loose, Auckland Zoo has a wide and fairly standard range of animals. My favourites are probably the otters! I'll try and take photos of all the different animals and add them to their sections. There's a list of the different animals at the zoo on the Auckland Zoo website as well.

Main areas:

Click through to the section of the zoo that you want to see!

Pridelands, Elephant Clearing and Hippo River; Aussie Walkabout; Primate Rainforest; Kidzone - Petting/Kids areas; Kiwi and Tuatara House; Sea Lion Shores; Misc.

It's a conservation orientated zoo (mostly...) so has active breeding programmes and new animals appear regularly. In the last couple of years, there have been baby otters, tigers, giraffes, zebra, baboons and dozens of less exciting animals. There's a petting zoo area for the kids, which keep changing but usually has rabbits, guinea pigs, 'normal' pigs, goats, various species of poultry, rats, locusts, gecko, stick insects and axolotls.

The Pridelands area contains:

Giraffes

Lions

Zebra

Ostriches

Springbok antelope

Rhinos

Hippo

Greater Flamingoes

Ostrich

Baboons

Tortoise (Sulcata, I think)

Cheetah

Serval

Indian Elephant

The New Zealand bird aviary was rebuilt recently and re-opened in 2011, as five entirely new aviaries featuring different ecosystems and species (bush, wetland, alpine, Keas). The species list includes tui, kereru, native ducks, and whatever other species the zoo can get hold of. There's also a tuatara, gecko and skink house.

The New Zealand darkened kiwi house is awesome - hidden in the back of the Wetland aviary, you walk through a long dark corridor, your way lit by hundreds of (fake) glow worms. In here you'll find cave weta, kauri snails, kiwis - and New Zealand native fish!

Tuatara

Kaka

Kea

Blue ducks (Whio)

The Australian Walkabout and nearby Exotic Birds aviaries includes:

Wallabies (Parma and Red-necked)

Kookaburra

Barn Owls (now gone)

Fruit bats (flying foxes)

Brolga (cranes)

Cockatoos

Rainbow lorikeets and Zebra finches

Sun Conures and Masked Lovebirds

African Grey Parrots

Emus

Various other Australian and Exotic birds

More generally, around the grounds are:

Asian small-clawed otters.

Tigers

Galapagos Tortoises

Tarantulas

Llamas

Golden Cat

White Swan

Alligators

Red Panda

Meerkats

New Zealand Fur Seals and Californian Sealions

Penguins (currently being rebuilt)

Bornean Orangutans

Chimpanzees

Koi

Peacocks (wandering loose - bottom of this page)

Ringtailed lemurs

Snake neck turtle

Cotton-top tamarins

Golden Lion Tamarins

Siamang gibbons

Spider monkeys

Various reptiles and skinks

African Clawed Frog

African Crested Porcupine

Endemic Archey's frogs

Agouti (with the Golden Lion Tamarins)

Chickens!

Blue-tongued skink

Leopard tortoises

The scheltopusik!

While I don't begrudge the zoo my money, as it does important conservation work, the price can be quite off-putting. Annual memberships are a very good deal if you go at least four times a year.

Adults (15 years )

$20.00

Child (4 to 14 years)

$10.00

Infants (under 4 years)

FREE

Senior citizens (ID required)

$16.00

Students (ID required)

$16.00

Family pass 1 (1 adult, 2 children)

$36.00

Family pass 2 (2 adults, 2 children)

$54.00

Additional children (added to either family pass)

$8 per child

Note: Children (4-14 years) must be accompanied by an adult aged 16 years or older.
Group rates (15 people or more): $1 discount per ticket (adults and children), unless already discounted (e.g. children, senior citizens).
Students This includes tertiary students (hurray!)

If you went right, under the corrugated elephant gateway, and started with the Pridelands, then the first area you'll see is the large, dusty giraffe enclosure. Along with the zebras and ostriches, the giraffes pace around here browsing and being generally exotic and predictable. I find them quite boring now! The animals here are harder to photograph as well, due to the size of the enclosure (I think it's the biggest in the zoo). However, they don't move around too much either, so it's not difficult to get some kind of picture!

The giraffes are undoubtedly the reason for the depth of the pit. The tallest mammals in the world, Giraffa camelopardis (the camel with leopard spots!), you don't really realise how big they are until you see one up close. Stately and impressive, they are easily identifiable. There was a giraffe foal born in 2010, as I recall, and there are currently three adult giraffes.

There are two feeding stations that you can walk out over the enclosure on - one is locked, and only open at the giraffe feeding encounters - 11.15am Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays (Platform 2). 1.15pm Wednesday (which is a good time to get very close to the giraffes... well, their heads!) .

There is a small herd of zebra at Auckland Zoo - they are in the large enclosure that is first on the track to the right, out of the visitors centre (the Prairie area). They share this large enclosure with giraffes and ostriches. Visitors can look down from viewing platforms (one open always, the other only open at special feeding times) which are about head height on a giraffe.

There was one male foal born in September 2010 - visible in the photos below, next to his eighteen year old mother, Ikita (Zebras can live up to 30 years). Zebra foals eat both hay and milk for the first few months.

Zebras are African, about the size of a large donkey or smallish pony (about 1.4 meters (4.6 ft) high at the shoulder), and obviously very distinctive for their stripes. The stripes can be black or brown, and each individual has a unique pattern, and are used for camouflage. There are six different species of Zebra, and the ones at Auckland Zoo are the Plain's zebra (also known as Common zebra or Burchell's zebra) Equus quagga, which mainly live in South Africa. While it is the commonest species of zebra, it is still threatened by human activities, specifically hunting and habitat loss. They are social animals, living in herds, and happily mix with other herbivores, such as the giraffes and ostriches in this case. They are seen as symbols of beauty by some African tribes.

Another African species, the ostrich is a very distinctive bird - the largest bird species living today, it stands taller than a person, and of course, is flightless. The males are striking in black and white, while the females are more practically decked out in camouflage colours of brown and grey. It is a ratite, but doesn't have an other living relatives, and the closest similar species are probably the rhea, emu and cassowary.

Ostriches run away from danger - or lie flat on the ground to hide!

There are a couple of females and a male living in among the zebras and the giraffes in one of the Pridelands enclosures at Auckland Zoo. They never really do anything interesting, or come close enough for a good photograph (the ones here are on full zoom - it's a big enclosure!)

Encounter: 1.45pm Thursday and Saturday

Passing between the Zulu huts on the right, and the giraffe enclosure on the left, you'll come to a wooden viewing shelter, past which the path continues. This shelter has a large glass wall on one side which lets you take a look into where the lions roam.

The lions aren't always visible, as there's a hill running down the middle of their pen. Don't worry yet if you can't see them, as they might be up the other end. Regardless, this is a nice place to stop, and there's a water fountain hidden on the path between the last zulu hut and the lion shelter.

Currently, Auckland Zoo has two male lions, who are brothers, but I haven't seen the rest of the pride (apparently there are five, according to the website) in over a year. This may just be chance, as they spend most of their time sleeping and hiding behind Lion Hill, but there was a litter of four cubs back then who may have been sent to other zoos.

There is a small herd of springbok sharing the desert-like Rhinoceros enclosure on the left - you can see it behind the giraffe section as you come in, and it lies on the opposite side of the path from the lions.

Springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) are a small African antelope, known best for their habit of springing directly up into the air when startled - "pronking" (Afrikaans and Dutch: pronk = to show off) or "stotting".

Medium sized antelope, they stand less than a metre high. Their jumping ability is impressive - 3.5m upwards, and up to 15m forward! However, they're usually much too relaxed at the zoo to display much in the way of acrobatics.They are alternately grazers or browsers, depending on what is growing, and can go their entire lives without actually drinking water! Springbok mostly form herds of females, while the males wander off on their own, but can also form harem, bachelor and nursery herds.

Their name comes from the Afrikaans and Dutch words - spring = jump; bok = antelope or goat, and they are the national animal of South Africa (the South African rugby team is known as the Springboks!) This is still a point of controversy, as it was a National symbol during the apartheid years. They are unusually not endangered, and unlike most antelope, actually have an increasing population.

Keep going up the dry and dusty path between the lions and the rhinoes, and the fence on the left will turn into a small path of tress, and an open area of chairs and tables will appear ahead of you. As you pass over a small bridge, if you look to the left you'll see the flock of flamingoes standing around in their small lake, and on the beach in the middle. This marks the beginning of Hippo River - a collection of animals from the marshy wetlands of Africa.

These spindly yet oddly graceful birds are best known for their pink colouring - which can fade to white, if they aren't getting enough pigment in their diet! They have enormous beaks, which they use to sift through the water, with their heads upside down - and to push off from the ground with, as they stand up!

The species at Auckland Zoo is the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus), from Central and South America, the West Indies and the Galapagos Islands. These wading birds live around salty lakes and coastal waters and can live up to 50 years! (I had a lecturer who get very excited about avian longevity - birds live a lot longer for their size than mammals).

The baboon enclosure is on the right after you pass the flamingoes and turtle pen. They have a small hill, covered in rocks (much like an English tor), and tend to be quite active. Sometimes they will wander out of sight behind the hill, but they'll often come back fairly quickly.

There are five baboons living at Auckland zoo - two males, two females, and on baby male born in 2010 (see pictures!). The males are quite distincively sexually dimorphic - the grow a silvery mane and 'cape' after the age of ten (lifespan is about 35 years), and about thirty inches tall.The females are half the size of the males, are browner and lack a mane. Both sexes sport the distinctive baboon bottom - a red skinned leathery seating pad that allows them to sleep upright.

Hamadryas baboons (Papio hamadryas) are Old World monkeys, from the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula. They are also known as 'Sacred Baboons' because they were sacred to the ancient Egyptians.

They are quite aggressive and patriarchal, which is unusual with baboon and macaque species - males will actively counter attempts from females to establish authority using aggression and segregation. They form multi-level societies, of which the base unit is a harem (which is what you will see at the zoo). Harems join into clans, and these combine into bands of up to two hundred baboons. Finally, several bands may combine to create a troop.

The main threats to the Hamadryas Baboon today is loss of habitat, but they are not particularly endangered and their main predators (leapord and lion) are practically extinct in their range.

After you go past the flamingoes, if you follow the curve of their enclosure around, and walk up the path in the trees, you'll wander past the baboons on your right (and more recently, a small tortoise section), and on your left a long wall of glass under an equally long viewing hut, looking out into the cheetah enclosure.

Here you'll probably find two of the fastest animals in the world lounging around in the sun. Anubis and Osiris are brothers, and like many male cheetahs, live quite happily together. The female tends to live alone, except when she has cubs. Whenever I visit, I can see one or both of them lying about three metres away from the glass in plain view, happily enjoying the sun.

They do notice people visiting - they tend to always be watching the glass, and there are signs up asking you not to bang or shout, but otherwise they are very relaxed and very photogenic.

On my most recent visit I got to listen to a little girl asking her mother in various ways how high they could climb and if they could climb the gate, and her mother replying that they could jump but they were happy where they are. This isn't actually the case! Cheetahs sacrificed most of their climbing ability for their fast running speeds.

Interestingly, they used to be kept as exotic pets by a variety of royal figures, as well as being kept for hunting by the Ancient Egyptians and Persians - they are tamer than other large cats. In the last ice age, most of the cheetahs died out, leading to a severe genetic bottleneck. This means that cheetah are very very similar, genetically, and this inbreeding means that not only are they often infertile, but they are also all very vulnerable to disease.

On Tuesdays, before the zoo opens, older children and adults can go on a walk around the zoo with both cheetahs, for NZ$150, in the Zoom Cheetah Experience.

On your way out of the hippopotamus viewing area, there's a nice wooden walkway, going around another enclosure on your right. This area is quite interesting - a very steep hill, with the top level with the walkway, sloping down to create a deep moat along the bottom. This is the serval area, and servals can jump three metres!

There are two servals here, and they are graceful yet odd-looking cats, with tiny heads in proportion to the rest of them. And such huge ears! They have amazing hearing and have long legs because they tend to live and hunt in long grass. Curled up, they look a lot like a 'normal' pussy cat, and quite cuddly.

Servals are believed to be ancestors to the cheetah (rather than the other way around!) and they actually purr! )

They've also been cross-bred with domestic cats to produce the exotic Savannahs. They are very hard to breed true, so usually the first generation is a large, friendly, intelligent cat, which gradually gets smaller and less spotty as it gets further away from its Serval parent.

There is an otter encounter at 12.30pm on Fridays.

There are at least two otter pens around the zoo - they keep being moved. My current favourite pair are the two females around the corner from one of the Red Panda runs, next to the Kidzone area - keep going past it and you'll reach the two tiger enclosures.

Here you may never see anything - or you may be treated to a splendid show. There's a very natural looking series of pools and a running stream along the front, and some greenery along the back, and the otters like running around and swimming there. They are very playful, and easy to tell apart by their behaviour. One likes to run and swim in circles, always clockwise! This is the one that's always swimming in the photographs below, round and round and up onto a corner and turn around and leap off and swim around the pool...

The other one has its head on a bit straighter and likes running up to the corner of the pen, standing up and chirping at people (possibly asking for food?).

There are two Red Panda pens - one is opposite the Meerkats, next door to the porcupine and the other is on the left around the corner from the two female otters - instead of going right to the tigers, go left around the bamboo fencing (and/or up onto the viewing platform) and follow the long wall of glass around until you spot this fluffy creature either napping (usually in its little house) or walking around. There's also a tortoise trundling around in this enclosure!

Auckland Zoo sent one of its female Red Pandas over to India in late 2010, as part of the cooperative international breeding programme for this threatened species. This is quite historical for Auckland Zoo, because it is the first non-native species to breed offspring to be directly released back into the wild. Darjeeling Zoo sent back a young male to hopefully pair up with the remaining female.

Red pandas (Ailurus fulgens fulgens) are unique and endangered. They aren't actually pandas at all, and have no close living relatives. They live in the foothills of the Himalayas, and their forest homes are rapidly being destroyed by human activity.

Meerkat Encounter: 12.45pm Monday

The meerkat pen is initially quite boring looking, but has hidden secrets. A large concrete, bulbous building, forming a sort of warped triangle with the Sea Lion Shores and the orangutan enclosure, it has a couple of concrete pens full of dead trees and meerkats. These lively little creatures are quite relaxed around the people only a metre or two away and spend a lot of time standing up in their famous sentry pose, or playing.

After you've been looking a little while, you'll suddenly notice weird plastic bubbles poking out of the ground! And then a human face will appear! These are the viewing windows for the meerkat tunnels - which are highly recommended to kids, but get a bit hot and crowded for adults. You can enter them by going around to the right of the meerkats and down the steps to the back of the building.

This mongoose species is from the Kalahari Desert, surviving on mostly bare ground on plant roots and insect, and quite entertaining! They actually stack themselves on top of each other at night, to stay warm, and young meerkats each get a 'teacher' to show them how to feed. They are fairly omnivorous - the keepers hide food in the logs for them, and they hunt for insects in the wood. One of the meerkats I saw on a previous visit spent several minutes watching and trying to stalk a female blackbird!

This spiny beastie is about the same size as the red panda and lives next to one of them, opposite the meerkats. The last time I visited, the Auckland Zoo pair were hiding in their house so I couldn't get any photos. As these rodents are nocturnal, you aren't like to see much of them.

While they aren't technically in the Rainforest section, they are right on the edge, and it's easy to go over their lake on the way in or out and not miss anything.

The alligator exhibit is newly built and a vast improvement over the old tiny little pond. The walkway is actually a long bridge over thier lake, which usually has some of the alliagtors floating in it. The have a grassy area on one side, where you may see some of them sunbathing.

There are currently five females, which grow up to 2.5m (males can reach 5m!). American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) are only found in the Southeastern United States. The only other species of alligator is the much smaller and highly endangered Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis), but they are closely related to crocodiles. You can tell them apart most easily by the teeth, as they overlap in both f=directions in crocodiles, while in alligators only the downwards pointing teeth are visible when the jaw is closed. Alligators also have a much more rounded, broad head shape.

They can stay underwater for up to eight hours in cold weather - being ectothermic (cold-blooded) their matabolism slows down completely, so that they need less oxygen. Like most reptiles, the sex of the babies is determined by the temperature that the eggs are incubated at.

Encounter: 12noon Monday

There are two kinds of tarantulas at Auckland Zoo, and both can be found in little tanks set into the wall at different heights in one of the entrances to the Rainforest. If you don't like spiders, it's now possible to just go around.

There are three spiders there at the moment, each in its own little tank.

The Chilean Rose Tarantula (Grammostola rosea) is a very fuzzy pinkish-grey spider, from the North Atacama Desert in Northern Chile and Southern Peru region (it's the last photo in the set below). They're docile and usually run away from danger, and are very popular as pets., due to their tameness and ease of care. They are also known as the Chilean flame tarantula, Chilean fire tarantula or the Chilean red-haired tarantula or the Chilean rose hair tarantula, depending on the colour of the individual spiders.

The females reach 7.5 cm, and both they and the smaller males have a legspan of about 15 cm. The male dies after mating, but the females are known to live for at least 20 years. Like many New World tarantulas, they have a defense mechanism of small spine-like urticating hairs on their abdomen which can be kicked off (literally) at threats.

The other tarantula species is the more dramatic Mexican Red-kneed Tarantula (Brachypelma smithi). Larger than the Chilean Rose, the females are slightly longer lived, with an estimated lifespan of 20-40 years. They are also quite docile and make popular pets. Unlike the Chilean Rose Tarantula, the Mexican Red-kneed tarantula lives in burrows (in the rainforests of Mexico), and the males don't die after mating, and can live up to 10 years.

They are listed as endangered by CITES, due to excessive export for the pet trade (although most are now bred in captivity), and eradication due to superstition on the part of local people.

There are three of these tiny and beautiful little primates at Auckland Zoo, tucked away in a little corner under the walkway of the Rainforest, just before the Siamang gibbons. There's one good viewing window looking straight down at their heated house, which they pop in and out of, in between climbing the trees. They are easy to identify, being a bright golden colour, and very lively little things. They'll often stop very still and look all around, before dashing off again.

If you look down at the ground, you might see the Agouti (a sort of large guinea pig or small, shiny, capybara).

Golden Lion Tamarin Grooming by Flynn_the_Cat
Get Postcard designs on zazzle.com

Golden Lion Tamarin by Flynn_the_Cat
Postcards from zazzle.com

The largest of the gibbon family, the two large black Siamang gibbons are impressive - found at the back of the Rainforest exhibit (opposite the way in, on the far side of the island), you can view them either from outside through the rope netting, or inside through large glass windows. They are very lively and playful, and their home is full of toys. They are also very noisy, when they choose (see video below!)

The gibbons don't seem to mind humans at all, and spend a lot of time hanging from the roof or netting next to the walkway, staring at people - as on the right!

They live in the rainforests of Sumatra in small family groups, and pair up for life. As you can see from the photos, they have very large arms and small legs, and spend most of their time swinging around about thirty metres above the ground. Their shoulders rotate 360 degrees!

The closest - and largest - species that you're likely to see in the Walkabout exhibit is an emu. These enormous, flightless birds are the runner-up to the ostrich. They stay off the path, but can come very close - I suspect people feed them - and they can be a bit unnerving to small children, with their enormous clawed feet and very big beaks.

Coming out of the gates at the far end of the Walkabout, you'll find yourself in the middle of a noisy little aviary. Here you'll find various birds flying free - rainbow lorikeets, doves, parakeets, and most noticeably, the little twittering Zebra finches.

They are both close to the path, and relatively unafraid, so you'll always see something - but they are also very fast, so hard to photograph! This is also a high-traffic area, as it's on the main route through the Walkabout.

Two of the aviaries contain several Sun Conures and a flock of Masked Lovebirds (Agapornis personata personata), next to the Walkabout, and at the far end, just before the Eel bridge, respectively.

There are at least three cockatoo species in different cages throughout the aviary section. The pink Major Mitchell's Cockatoos (Cacatua leadbeteri) are right at the beginning, in with the Kookaburra.

There is one representative of the very recognisable Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita. The Auckland Zoo Suphur-crested cockatoo has his own pen, and is known as Captain. He's hand-reared, talks, and can be found just over the eel bridge, in a tiny little walled off area (no wire!).

The very large Red-tailed Black Cockatoos (Alyptorhynchus banksii) (pictured on right) have their own very large cage on the right, after the Parma wallabies. There are two of these enormous birds, and they can be very noisy! They are really hard to photograph, because of the wire, and the fact that they're usually far away at the top of the aviary!

Kea by NZPhotography

In late 2011, Auckland Zoo opened up the four new aviaries (and one old one) in the new New Zealand section.

My favourite is the kea aviary, which holds three keas and a weka. Keas (Nestor notabilis) are a unique parrot species that live in the mountains of the South Island, amongst the rocks and snow! Very large and inquisitive, they can also be very destructive, happily attacking tyres and stealing belongings! They're green, with a large hooked beak (they eat carrion, among other things), and incredibly glorious orange and red plumage under their wings and tail. Oh, they also love water, and will often be found washing their food or taking a bath!


Kea by NZPhotography

Basically, they're a larger, flashier, tougher version of the North Island Kaka, their quieter forest cousin.

The Weka is a large, shy species of rail, also found in the South Island. It is flightless, and well camouflaged - due to its shyness, I haven't managed to get a good photo yet. The first time I visited, the day it opened, one of the keas had taken it upon itself to keep the weka inside their room!

The old New Zealand bush aviary holds all the forest birds - the tuis, kaka, silvereyes, kerery (native woodpigeon), and red and yellow crowned parakeets (kakariki). It is full of trees, and climbs up the side of a hill, into the bush, so it is very like being in the middle of the forest. It features a wooden walkway, that climbs up to a viewing platform with a splendid view over the entire enclosure - and a feeding station, where you'll often see birds.


Kaka by NZPhotography
Become a part of Zazzle's artist affiliate program


Tui in Rimu Tree by NZPhotography
Full Color postcard printing on zazzle


Kereru Closeup by NZPhotography
See other Kereru Postcards


Kereru Closeup by NZPhotography
Sell art online at Zazzle.

Red-Crowned Parakeet by NZPhotography
Browse Bird Postcards

Right at the far end is the wetland section, which contains native ducks, an eel tank and a whitefaced heron (which was busy trying to build a nest over the eel tank last time I went! Coming out of that aviary leads straight into the darkened kiwi house, which also contains some nocturnal native fish species. You come out back next to the entrance of the wetlands aviary, so you have to double back a little bit to keep going.