The bright green and yellow (with a dab of blue) budgies swarmed through the air, around and around, reversed directions and stayed on wing for another couple of circuits.
| A new exhibit of Australian birds at Woodland Park Zoo, 601 N. 59th St., Seattle. Visitors age 3 and older, $1 in addition to regular zoo admission, with a free seed stick that probably will attract a budgie. Additional sticks can be purchased. 206-684-4800.
Tip: Early morning visits may involve more birds on the seed sticks; even birds get full by late afternoon. |
A rosella whistled and a cockatoo chirped at all the budgie action, but stayed put. The budgies settled on tree branches or hung upside down on netting, talking to themselves.
Close your eyes and imagine you’re in Australia. Open them and know you’re in Willawong Station, Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle.
Reality doesn’t take away from the magic, however, for children. Wide-eyed Emma Irons of Federal Way was entranced by a colorful budgie pecking at the millet seed on a stick held by her mother, Rochelle.
Willawong is derived from the Aboriginal word meaning the junction of two creeks, an ideal location for trees and birds.
The free-flight aviary is located in the former tree kangaroo exhibit in the Australasia bioclimatic zone of the zoo near the zoo’s north gate.
While the phrase “don’t feed the animals” is emblazoned on zoo-going psyches, that’s a rule that’s tossed out at Willawong Station.
The $1 fee (above zoo admission) to the aviary includes a seed stick to attract the birds, which were bred in captivity.
“There are very few exhibits that you can come in and be with the animals. The budgies are a very neat experience. … Primates, you can’t feed them,” said Helen Shewman, collection manager.
The exhibit also provides written information to visitors on how they can attract birds to their backyards.
“Budgies are very busy, very social birds. They live in really big flocks to protect themselves from predators. They’re grassland birds, and very talkative,” Shewman said of the 108 budgies at Willawong Station.
The zoo also has 20 cockatiels, who can occasionally be tempted to descend to a seed stick; six rosellas, arguably the prettiest of the three; and a few others still in quarantine, for almost 250 birds. “We’re not expecting the rosellas to come down,” she said of the colorful parrots with the harsh screeches and bell-like whistles.
Budgerigars (parakeets or budgies), cockatiels (smallest member of the cockatoo family), and rosellas have been bred since Victorian times, usually winding up in cages or small household aviaries.
In the wild, multispecies flocks can be 300 to 400 strong.
“In Australia, they can be considered a pest. Imagine if 400 birds landed on fields where you had just planted seeds,” she said.
At Willawong Station, visitors are happy that they do eat seeds.
Ryan Hawk photos
While some budgies check out the action from a safe distance (top), others partake of the seed sticks offered by Zora Dziko (above) and Ulises Vargas (left) at Willawong Station at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo.
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