Texel Zoo, North Holland Province, The Netherlands

5Yvonne V 5:00 PM Oct 4, 2014

Enjoyable interaction with butterfly's and birds worth a visit.
Visited this attraction for the first time in 2008/ 9, when I visited the island. They did not have the butterfly garden last time, which has been recently added and the other attractions changed and I think improved even more, which is hard to believe as it was already a great inter active attraction. You walked into the butterfly garden and the butterfly's fluttered around and landed on me. The variety of butterfly's was excellent. The birds for ease of description were divided into three sections, one being parrots, next seed feeding birds and the third being owls, eagles and falcons. The parrots were flying around in an aviary in which you walked around in. Easy to take photos of the birds as the landed close by if you were still for a few moments. The seed feeding birds were also in a covered aviary, which also was warm and every where you looked you saw different birds of colour and size. The highlight for me was the owls and eagles where they had two different flight displays one inside and one outside. The inside flight had birds (4) which feed on other animals, a small owl, kookaburra and another two. They gave a brief description over each bird as they released it from its box, and it flew around the group and landed on a perch. The handler called the bird back and each time you had ample chance to take a photo. The next session took place outside in a field, where they had six of the larger variety of birds, and again each bird they gave a description and showed how the bird hunted. The staff were always friendly and encouraged questions and gave ample time for photos of the birds in various poses. Was very lucky as it was a small group and all in the group were given the opportunity to have a bird placed on their arm (thick leather glove supplied) to feel the weight and have that special photo taken. All in all spent four hours there and thought that was too short.

3Holidaygirl78 5:00 PM Aug 13, 2022

Small but good way to spend an hour
This is a very small zoo, which isn’t particularly well advertised but is a good way to spend an hour or so. Most of the zoo is indoors with free flying butterflies and birds. There are also a few animals (meerkats and prairie dogs) outside, alongside a selection of owls. The birds of prey show wasn’t on when we visited but there was a clear route in place to ensure that you didn’t miss anything (follow the red and blue arrows).