The title tells you what’s coming here: Lots of pictures of birds. That will be no surprise to anyone who’s followed my articles: I’m always fascinated by birds and their interactions with humans, and with each other.
Guess who has a wheelbarrow full of fish parts…
For that reason, finding that Kuala Lumpur has a bird park—one of the world’s largest—obviously had my attention. Over 20 acres of birds, running free under a huge mesh canopy. Of course I had to go.
But before I share too many more of the pictures, I have a confession. I am a bird-watcher. But just that: Not a bird-classifier, not a bird-savant, just a watcher. I can tell the owls from the hawks, the pelicans from the pigeons, that sort of thing. It just doesn’t go much further; I’m fascinated by their antics, not their ancestors.
The Bird Park is in a hilly area above the city center; it’s part of the Lake Gardens, which also include a butterfly park, an orchid garden, a hibiscus garden and a deer park. And, it even has a few monkeys of its own.
The bird park was created in 1991, and has over 3,000 birds of more than 200 species, 90% of them local. The others were imported, mostly from other parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
New to me: the correct term for what I always called ‘peacocks’ is ‘peafowl;’ only the male is a peacock… duh. And not all of them are as gloriously kitted out as the ones we usually see, the India Blue. But, they are all said to share ‘attitude,’ though they didn’t show much of that during the visit.
A few more birds with fancy feathers, including a Victoria Crowned Pigeon and a Helmeted Guinea Fowl.
And birds on stilts…
And an assortment of owls, surprisingly awake for daytime visitors, though one looks quite sleepy….
Some birds seemed to enjoy socializing around the food, perhaps the bird equivalent of the office water-cooler…
Others appeared happy on their own, but occasionally giving a side-eye look to the nosy humans…
