Yuen Po Street Bird Garden

Follow the exotic birds' singing and you'll surely find yourself at Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. The high-pitched singing becomes unbearable to my ears after 15 minutes, but the bird garden itself is small enough to see in that short time. Some birds looked healthy with beautiful, vibrant-colored feathers, yet others unfortunately appeared dull-colored and matted. The depressing aspect of this bird garden is the cramped, dirty conditions of the cages. Yuen Po Street Bird Garden isn't necessarily a must-visit in Hong Kong, but it's worth a short detour if you're on the Kowloon side and already visiting the adjacent Flower Market.

Was very fun to walk through. But sad to see so many birds in cages. Lots of crickets, mealworms and grasshoppers as bird food for sake. Smaller than I expected but still very cool.

REVIEWER # 8 This has to be one of my favorite things I did when I was in Hong Kong. Between the beautiful flower market and the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden, I was heaven! Hong Kong is known for all the markets: Day market, night markets, food markets and of course the fabulous flower market and the bird garden! This place cannot go unnoticed. This is definitely a must-do when in Hong Kong. This was my first time experiencing a garden and market like this and I literally spent almost 3-4 hours taking it all in and going around and seeing all the birds. The flower market and the bird garden are walking distance away from each other. You will literally run into the bird garden as you approach the end of the flower market. The bird garden is totally FREE and open to the PUBLIC. The best time to come see the flower market and the bird market is the morning time, before it gets crowded. The garden is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Packed with booths selling birds. HOW TO GET THERE: Nearest MTR Station: Prince Edward (Exit B1) walk east along Prince Edward Road West; or Mong Kok East (Exit C) and walk to Sai Yee Street via the footbridge and follow the signs . It is also close to Mong Kok East MTR Station and Mong Kok Stadium. Just hop on to an MTR train, get down at Prince Edward Station and leave the station from Exit B1. Turn left, walk just a few steps and turn left again on Prince Edward Road. A 15 minute straight walk on this road will bring you to flower shops first, then a left turn into the main flower market, and if you keep walking straight without turning left you will reach the corner of Yuen Po Street from where you can climb a few steps up to enter the Bird Garden. Many people have high hopes for the bird garden but please note that the garden is nothing but a market place filled with tons and tons of caged birds that sit outside with their feet chained to wooden or metal rods (sounds terrible but it's the truth) and to add on to it...Many of them have their wins chipped so they cannot fly away. But after that is all said and done that does not steer me in the wrong way to the point where I don't want to come and hear the birds sing me songs all morning. There were bigger birds out on branches and one would dance which made for interesting photos. They have all types of colored birds here in many different sizes. They also have a few shops where they serve live food to the birds. Small insects and worms are sold by weight to the keepers of the birds. You see an unbelievable array of bird related things on sale in the bird garden, cages, birdfeed, in-cage embellishments, and a host of other things I could not even identify. Fascinating from the cultural angle is the historic angle to the place, and the large number of old folks who come to 'walk' their birds so to speak. The Yuen Po bird garden is a popular rendezvous for elderly Chinese seniors who walk to the park with their birds (in their cages). Stayed here a lot longer than planned, definitely a must visit!

I had just made a comment to my husband that since moving to Hong Kong, I miss the sounds of birds chirping (a small consequence of living in a huge city I suppose). Well never fear, I found the chirping birds today and my longing for these feather friends has subsided for now. A great stop in your day if you are in the area and buzzing around the local flower market or live fish district in the area. Fresh air, beautiful trees and of course, birds. Lots and lots of birds. Yuen Po Street Bird Garden, which is a large Chinese-style bird park filled with thousands of birds, bird traders and bird fanciers sharing their love of birds. Birds, crickets, worms, cages, food, water bowls....everything you could possibly imagine you need pertaining to having a bird as a pet can be found at this garden. There are locals who have brought their own birds and are just hanging out with neighbors and other bird fanciers. The park itself is beautiful and was a preservation project of sorts for the city in cleaning up and revitalizing this area countless years ago, as I have read. There is a brochure I found there talking more about the design and history of the Bird Street Garden. Maybe not on the Top 20 List for a tourist visiting Hong Kong for the first time, but definately a neat little spot to see showing local flavor and a worthy stop if you are discovering more about Mong Kok...or you miss the sounds of chirping birds.

I like how all these sellers and stores are all centrally located together like a hub. Makes it easy for buyers to know where to go when we need something, but also hard to decide on where to buy since they all sell the same varieties of goods. Compare and contrast! I felt sad looking at all these birds, it's like they want to escape from their cages or chains. It's definitely cool to walk through here and observe nature if you're a bird enthusiast.

I really want to like this place because it reminded me of a dog park, but with birds. The birds are all in their own unique 'wooden' cages and chirping away. The owners would bring them throughout the day and hang their cages along the area and listen to them sing. It's nice to see these sort of old tradition. I can't just seem to imagine a bunch of men bringing their own birds and talking about them back home. So the bad part about this place is the reality of the bird market. I really just want to buy all the birds and free them...it's so sad seeing them locked in such small cages. I even found a dead one, poor little thing. I hope all these birds will find a home soon or be freed! I wouldn't suggest coming here if you're a bird lover...it'll break your heart. Overall, an interesting tradition with a dark beginning.

Ok, but what is a bird garden, you might be asking? Well here we go, whee... up the street and under that big arch into the middle of it, to find out what it is. l supposed it would be a place where people go to air their birds and share an afternoon in the park. It sort of is. What I wasn't expecting was that it is also a bird market. There were tons of the little cuties, crammed into tiny cages :( In case you want some live feed, you can find that here too. Several stalls near the entrance were crammed with bags and bags of big bouncing bugs. (How's that for alliteration?) Lots of crickets and grasshoppers, of course, as well as meal-worms and a few other things. The bugs themselves I found cute too. So does that mean that the birds are extra cute because you are what you eat? So many birds! Finches, lovebirds, sparrows, parrots, macaws, parakeets, cockatiels, and plenty of others with names I don't know. These rainbow lovebirds were particularly cute. There were few big birds, but the two I saw, a Scarlet and a Blue-And-Yellow Macaw, were pretty cool. They were still as statues but clearly alive as signified by the occasional blink. They looked quite healthy from what I could tell. It was nice to be close to a big bird like that; it doesn't happen often in my life, at least. There were lots of other interesting things to look at, like the walls of cages in all sorts of sizes, some occupied and some not, or the many flutterings going on wherever I looked. The noise, I must say, took some getting used to. It was quite loud and some of the birds were letting out high pitched squawks and cries that were so shrill they verged on hurting my ears. Still, some locations were quieter than others so it was possible to move on if the sound became grating. And despite all that, it's worth a visit.

Be alarmed. This is the place you will see quite a number of elderly men feeding and showcasing their birds in public. (I hope that does not come out wrong). In fact, it is one of the age old Chinese tradition where old men bring along their feathered friends in a nicely craft bamboo cage or carved from teak and hear them sing. This place is called Yuen Po Street, as known as Bird Garden, which is famous for selling pet birds. Every day it has a handful of tourists and the like coming here to witness how men feed their pets with crickets, grasshoppers or caterpillars in exchange for songs. If you walk further down the street, you will see some market stands where you can buy different kind of birds like canaries, toucans or parrots. Some may see this kind of cruel to confine one flying creature in such small cage (apparently SCMP tried to end by running a campaign this one time but I guess it failed) but honestly I do not know how it started if you ask me... Chinese seem to traditionally have grown to keep birds as their pets... but I have to admit sometimes it is nice to have a serene environment where you can just relax and stop working for a bit and listen to birdsongs. My advice is to adopt an open heart and treat it as a foreign culture that preserves the characteristics. Sadly (or fortunately... I have mixed feelings about this place), I do not see this place existing in a few more years because of the dwelling number of tourists.