Sunday, November 9, 2008

Day 12 - Kuala Lumpur - Bird Park

by Jim

Thursday, March 13, 2008

I got up a little early this morning, and headed out for a walk and to find a place to take breakfast. We had gotten lucky with so many of the little local kopitiams and hawker stands for breakfast, and I hoped my luck would hold up. I found a place behind the Concorde Hotel where there were a long line of hawker stands, and went back to the Renaissance to get Barbara. We walked the row of stalls until we found one that was crowded and making roti, Barbara's favorite.

They offered us a variety of fillings. Before, we had only had it with egg, so we decided to try it with the chicken. It turned out to be a chicken patty, minced chicken with onion and other spices. It was tasty but greasy. We had noticed that the chef was pretty heavy with the ghee (clarified butter). And the usual coffee zero for me, coffee with milk for Barbara.
Afterwards, we headed out to the KL Bird Park. This is a 20 acre park, with much of it covered so the birds can fly around freely. There were some cages, and there were some open areas where, in addition to the birds, local monkeys ran around.

The first area was where you could feed the lovebirds. (There we met a couple from Iran. It was a little awkward, I think we were both a little embarrassed at how our national governments were behaving. But we were both able to smile at the birds, and laugh at the sounds the peacocks made. Those commonalities are a good thing for us all.)
Then from there you went into the main attraction, the hornbill. Barbara's already shown you the video of the rhinocerous hornbill at the beginning of the blog. There were several other species there: black hornbill, white-crowned hornbill, great hornbill , and Oriental pied hornbill.
Rhinoceros HornbillOriental Pied Hornbill

Great hornbill preening
Nesting storks
Oriental Pied Hornbill at feeding time

After the hornbills, there were parrots. Some were in an open aviary, some were in smaller cages.
Hawks and eagles were in individual small aviaries. Toucans were there as well. They are all from Central and South America, but the similarity of the bill lead to them being called New-World hornbills.

Everyone who has read our blogs knows Barbara's love of getting her picture taken holding or getting kissed by exotic animals. At the Feathered Friends Photo Booth, she got to hold a female wreathed hornbill and an owl. She thought this was really cool.
We stopped for a soda and a break after that. Right about that time, the macaques came through.
The attendants at the snack bar started pulling all of the candy displays inside the kiosk, because the monkeys would steal them if they didn't. As it was, they raided the garbage cans.

We also saw monkeys getting it on, making little monkeys. Unfortunately, Barbara wasn't quick enough with the camera, and they were quicker than she was.

We fed ostriches there too. They're aggressive.


Then we went into another aviary with more water areas for birds like flamingos and Milky Storks. I got lucky with a picture and got one in flight carrying a big stick to make a nest.
I also got a great picture of a Southern Ground Hornbill from Africa.

The best, though, was a peacock showing off for a peahen. And the hen was ignoring him. It was an amazing display.
Barbara tried talking to her, but it was not to be.After all this, it was lunchtime, so we went to the Hornbill Cafe at the park. With our admission to the park, we got a coupon for a free juice there. For lunch, we had chicken wings. Perhaps that was a bad choice. I hope they were chicken. They were tasty. And we had a view of the hornbills in the trees just outside the window. Then we headed back to the hotel, and hung out by the pool. I put on my swim trunks and took a brief swim, then sat with Barbara and enjoyed the afternoon.

1 comment:

Louis said...

I like the pictures of Barbara and the birds, and playing Peacock Whisperer to help a little luv going. Tres cute.