KL Bird Park

One of the highlights of our Chinatown staycation was a trip to the KL Bird Park.  It's on the west side of the city, near Chinatown, so it was a quick drive over there in the morning, and there was plenty of free parking in front of the entrance when we got there.  We are definitely fans of arriving early.  There are fewer people and less heat.

The coolest part about the Bird Park is that there is a huge area where the birds can roam freely.  It's covered by a net so large that we could see it from our hotel room.  It definitely took a little getting used to at first, because near the entrance, the birds were still on the other side of the fence.

But then you walked through another gate, and you were in it with them.

And they were walking around like they owned the place.  At first, we tried to stay out of their way as much as possible, but then we realized they were completely used to people, and they didn't mind us at all.

There were tons of beautiful peacocks everywhere.

The pelicans seemed to prefer sitting on the bridges.

We expected the birds to fly off when we crossed, but they just stayed put as we walked by single file.  Elena and I let Jeff and Viv go first.

There were also lizards wandering free, so we needed to be on the lookout for them as well.

One of the highlights was a lovely waterfall area.

As we were leaving, we saw that the waterfall made a rainbow.

There were also some education areas where the girls enjoyed learning more about birds, and we all enjoyed the air conditioning.

They especially liked the part with the little chicks.

But really, the main fun was to walk around and spot different kinds of birds.

We also happened upon a feeding time, so there were some real life demonstrations of how birds don't have teeth but still manage to eat fish.

We even got to help with the animal feeding ourselves.  Near one of the ostrich enclosures, there was a feeding station with a basket of leafy greens to feed them.  There was also a cage to protect the humans from overly enthusiastic ostriches.  At Safari World in Bangkok, there is a sign near the ostriches that says don't get too close or they may peck out your eyes, so we have a rational level of caution around ostriches.  The girls had also just learned that an ostrich's legs are strong enough to kick a lion to death, so they weren't so sure about getting any closer.

I felt it was my parental duty to go first, so I headed in while Jeff hung back "to take pictures".  When I successfully fed the ostrich a couple leaves, Elena's love of animals won out, and she came and joined me.

At the exit, there was a restaurant, so we decided it was feeding time for us as well.  The girls gave the spaghetti with bolognese two thumbs up.

We managed to avoid any gift shop purchases, since the only thing that really interested them were stuffed birds, and we have a bunch of those already.

We left just as the day was getting really hot and the parking lot was getting crowded and headed back to the hotel for pool time and cooking class.  It was a wonderful morning outing for our bird loving family.