Poultry houses in Peterhof
Forest and exotic birds inhabit the incredible interiors of aviaries: the inhabitants of the tropical forests of Central and South America, namely, beautiful blue-yellow macaws and bronze-winged parrots. Red-Tailed Jaco, Senegalese parrots and pink-cheeked lovebirds from West Africa live here - in general, the beautiful chants do not end here.
According to the plan of Peter the Great, when creating the future of the palace and park ensemble of Peterhof, the territory next to Monplezir was determined for the device of the "menazherii" (architecturally designed house for birds).
The primary construction was performed by the Italian Niccolo Michetti, and the inside was painted by the Frenchman Louis Caravac. Then, in the summer, in the Western enclosure contained nightingales, thrushes, plantain, siskins, chaffinches, tap-dancing, canaries, bullfinches and other songbirds. Exotic birds lived in the eastern aviary, mainly parrots, which were brought to Peterhof from the countries of America, Asia, and Africa.
In the past, for the winter, birds were moved to special heated huts in the Poultry Yard. Now singers and waterfowl are moving to “winter apartments” in the park “Alexandria”.
Nowadays, birds are placed in accordance with their geographical distribution in nature. Among forest birds, as in former times, the collection is represented by passerines, mainly of the vyurkovy and ovsyankovy families. Also here are finch, greenfinch, bullfinch, tap-dance, siskin and goldfinch. But not all the birds are local - for example, shchur lives only in the coniferous forests of the taiga zone, and the snow plantain - in the tundra.
In other enclosures the fauna of the mountain landscapes of India and China, West Africa, forest expanses and fields of Australia, New Zealand, the islands of Oceania are represented.
In addition, there is a "Lebyazhnik" in the poultry houses - a special room with a pool adapted for waterfowl: a pair of mute swans and a family of Canadian geese.