Phil's just received the female Wreathed Hornbill that i sent him, to go alongside his male, and i'm posting a picture of the Hornbill, that i'm sure will find a nice spot on his diorama very soon.


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Very fine hornbill
Those birds are really fantastic but, excepting the japanese side, there is IMHO no chances to see a company produce one...
Maybe Safari ?
But of course you have your own impressive provider Danny

You are right Kiki, birds have never been high in the list of figures from modern companies, and yes this Hornbill is from the same collection, Phil already had the male, he took some great shots in his avatar, so i wonder what he will do with the female.
This other two hornbills are papuan Hornbill, an impressive Asian Species as well, at one point i had a hornbill collection of over 35 species all from the same Japanese Scultor and a real treasure, but i have reduced the amount of species to around 20 now still more than most real life zoos hold in their collectios.

Papuan male and female[img][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][/img]


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They are great Danny.

I can't wait to see more

Yes Kiki,

I will for sure line up all of the hornbills and take a couple shots of them, before others fly out of the zoo without even opening its doors yet.

I have a very large collection of rare birds and most will probably never be done by any of the companies, very lucky to have our Japanese Master Artist take an interest in the project. Here are a couple of pictures of other rare species, not hornbills.

one in particular i'm sure most in the forum have never heard or seen, since not even the fantastic Juron birdpark in singapore holds it anymore. The umbrella bird [img][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][/img]

The one above is the Long-wattled Umbrellabird, i also have a Bare-necked Umbrellabird, similar but with a bright red marking on its chest, both part of the birdhouse at the zoo.

Fantastic, they're lovely Danny!

Interesting, i'm sure one of the big bird collections in Germany might have it, but neither Berlin or Frankfurt had it in my time there, and no zoo in North America has it either, not even the mighty San Diego or Bronx, and the funny thing is none of the subspecies are endangered, so getting the bird shouldn't be the problem.

By the way Kiki, i have been delaying a trip to Paris for some time waiting for their long awaited Zoo of the Future to open, any words other than what can be found online as to what the real timeframe might be? My fiancee is really eager to visit Paris, but wouldn't mind waiting a year or so for their new zoo to open.

I think that Paris has to be the only premiere city of the world that has been without a zoo for so long, their Museum of Natural History is a jewel and the Aquarium is not bad at all, but hopefully the zoo lives up to the expectations, the Valencia Bioparc did for the most part, would have loved the place to be a little more landscaped thought, but Fuengirola Bioparc does Rainforest proud in that department.

Interesting bird:
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Beautiful figures of birds Danny, Thank you for showing
And thank You for lesson-I've heard about umbrella bird first time here

Beautiful birds. I can't wait to see more and more. Thanks for sharing.

Fantastic models and birds again Danny, as we could aspect from you of course!

I don't know if the NOP Parrott-Parc does have an umbrella bird actually, or maybe Avifauna Bird-Parc in Alphen aan de Rijn has.
I actually never heard of this first parc...
In Germany i would give Vogelpark Walsrode a good chace, where i was several times in my youth, when i lived not so far away from there.

Oh yes, that is what i forgot to say yesterday...
I was in the Paris Zoo in the 1990's, they even had a giant panda!
It was an old zoo, but even too bad, i saw worser zoo's...