Birdland Park and Gardens - a wildlife park in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England.

Happy who for a season may
      Absent themselves on buoyant wing!
      The birds that Winter drives away
      Will surely come again with Spring.
They of our ills will mindful be,
      And when at length the storm has passed,
      They will return to this same tree
      Which has so often felt the blast.
      Then to our fertile vale will they
      A more auspicious presage bring!
      The birds that Winter drives away
      Will surely come again with Spring.
~Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857), "The Birds," translated from the French by Percy Reeve, in Love & Music, 1883

 Penguins are fascinating, funny and entertaining, and as well as Humboldts, Birdland is also home to England’s only collection of King Penguins. In the wild there are 17 species of penguin, which is a group of flightless birds designed for speed in water rather than the air.

A bird is three things:

Feathers, flight and song,

And feathers are the least of these.

MARJORIE ALLEN SEIFFERT, 
"The Shining Bird"

A wonderful bird is the pelican His bill can hold more than his belican He can take in his beak Food enough for a week But I don’t see how the helican by Dixon Merritt

There are 6 species of flamingo and we have 2 species at Birdland, the Greater and Caribbean. All flamingos are pink and obtain the colour from their diet of crustaceans.  They vary as a species in shades of pink from white to red. The Caribbean is dark vivid pink and the Greater is pale pink. Birdland bred its first flamingo, a Greater, in 2003.

Flamingos have quite elaborate courtship displays, dancing and synchronisation, which can usually be seen between April and August.  All flamingo species have the unique sickle shaped down-turned beak that is specifically designed for sifting food from the silt, stirred up by their feed, in the river or lakebed.

The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

J.M. BARRIE, The Little White Bird

From bush and hedge and tree

Joy, unrestrained and free,

Breaks forth in melody,

Twitter and chirp and song.

EMMA LAZARUS, "Matins"

 Parrots are a large family group and are widely known as mimics and kept as pets.  They range from the smallest parrotlet to the largest macaw.  The larger species show their dexterity of being able to hold food in their claws and offer it to their beak for feeding.  The beak and feet also allow them to climb and walk among the trees.

O birds, your perfect virtues bring,

Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight,

Your manners for your heart’s delight,

Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof,

Here weave your chamber weather-proof,

Forgive our harms, and condescend

To man, as to a lubber friend,

And, generous, teach his awkward race

Courage, and probity, and grace!

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, May-Day and Other Pieces