Hill Mynah breeding success at Paradise Park

We are delighted to report that our three pairs of Hill Mynah birds, which were part of a consignment seized in the illegal trade in Europe in early 2020, have now all bred, which is wonderful news.

A big thank you goes to our Keepers with their excellent bird keeping skills, which is helping to turn around the fortunes of this priority species. We have already placed young birds bred in previous years in four other UK collections in order to create a viable captive population for the species within the UK.

Current fledged chick being fed

See video clip of adults, with two chicks, making those distinctive natural calls below.

Plus, a fun short video clip of a chick hatching from 2021 that was hand-reared.
Hatching can be such hard work for a Hill Mynah! Time for a well-deserved nap, back in the shell…

Wild birds are no longer allowed to be imported into the EU or UK, and as the pets rarely bred, the species is not often seen in Europe. They are still caught and traded in other countries, and like many Asian bird species, there are fears for their future in the wild.

Keeper Becky Waite hand-rearing chicks in 2021

Eggs which turned out to not be fertile, but they did go on to lay more.

They have a lot of character and are sturdy good-looking birds. People of a certain age might remember that Mynahs were often kept as pets in the 70s and 80s and could learn a wide range of words, whistles, and calls. Sadly, these were almost always caught in the wild and imported, very few were bred in the UK. Ours do not talk but we have already heard a lot of their very distinctive natural calls.

More on Hill Mynah’s HERE