Luckily I got about 20 minutes of power nap while waiting for Kak Cik at her school if not I would be too tired to take Mar to the KL Bird Park I had cycled to UKM that morning and had pushed myself a bit. Fresh after the nap I asked Mar to get ready and by 1400 we were on the highway speeding towards the bird park. I was mindful that if we were to arrive too early it would be too hot to walk around. So I timed and planned it as such we could have a quick lunch first before we entered the park. At the same time getting our body to get use to the heat.
We walked into the park at around 1445 and be greeted by the birds. Instinctively Mar asked what time was the show. I was not sure whether there would be one so we check our map and schedule. True enough there was one schedule at the amphitheater at 1530. The amphitheater was at Zone ? which was at the other end. I proposed to Mar a path that would take us there on time. As we turned onto the path a small crowd excitedly was gathering around a beautiful bird. A male peacock was in full glory trying to protect his territory. All of us with camera were clicking away trying to capture the best part of the bird. After awhile, from my view finder, I realized the bird was not actually trying to protect his territory being in the park too long and having a lot of visitors giving him enough attention was actually showing off big time. What can I say, peacock will be peacock he he he. After awhile we had enough of the peacock and started to walk further in the direction of the amphitheatre.
After a short walk we came to a place where two attendants were sitting around waiting and inviting visitors to their photos with the birds perched on manmade branches within the area. The invitation was of course tagged with you departing with some of your beloved RMs. All of the birds were exotic birds like kite, parrots, and macaw. They were sitting confident and pretty like cabaret dancers waiting for someone to come over to ask for a dance. I thought I wanted to take their digital equivalent but then I decided not to. Primarily because it was not natural. Secondly, I really thought all the birds there were vainly snobs and too proud of themselves. We moved on to our left to the birds of prey area. Obviously being what they are they were caged within a cage. Our KL Bird Parks has good collections of the close family of kites, hawks, eagles and owls. To our naked eyes they were really were beautiful and exciting birds but to my digital camera the small grid wire mesh was a complete deterrent for good photography. We moved on to be presented with the parrots and its kind sanctuary. Once were inside it was worth all the RMs I paid to enter. Some of them were left free outside their cages within their own enclosure. So we could get really close to them and being too familiar with human they were not afraid to come to you or even to pose majestically for you.
I could not stay too long at one place as being hyperactive Mar would like to move along quickly. She kept asking me to hurry up to proceed for her bird show and I kept telling her do not worry we had enough time. Well I am used to that. To occupy her time and to keep her mind away from the bird show I cajoled her into becoming my fulltime model. She obliged of course. We walked on and both enjoyed the surrounding as much the birds. If the birds, at least most of them in the confinement of the park, were free to roam we were even free with our demeanors. A father and daughter quality times together. As we walked closer down to amphitheater we saw there was already a bit of visitors sitting waiting and seeing that Mar got impatient. She ran and ignored my yelling to wait for me.
Once seated she was still like a worm under a hot sun. She just could not keep still a moment. Eventually the show started and the first comment that came out of Mar’s mouth was. ‘Ala! ni dah tengok dah’. She was obviously referring to the same routine that we saw a week before at the Zoo Negara. I quieten her saying there should be something different after the first one. Not much. She enjoyed the show nevertheless after that.
After the show we started to continue to walk at the point where we left off. The inner sanctuary was very interesting and luck had it while we were there the keeper came out to feed the birds, especially the herons and flamingos with fish. We stayed there watching the antics of the birds. We were closed enough to them that we could touch them. In fact some of them came even closer. But then Mar got a little bit scared to touch them. One thing that we were told during the bird show was that most of the herons and white flamingos that we saw flying around freely outside at the open area were squatters that came from places like the Zoo Negara for free meals. Not only that we could also see a lot of macaques were loitering around.
While walking and photographing in the inner sanctuary something unexpected came into my view finder. I thought I was seeing a reflection but when I took off my eyes of the view finder and look over true enough that it was a solitary black swan swimming in the pond.
The rest of the walk was just making our round around the park to make sure we covered every corner of the place. Nothing was out of the ordinary except that we found out there were a lot of peacocks in the park. They were like everywhere. I guess they were very productive and easy to breed. But then seeing too many of them at every interval was really an anti climax. Towards the end of our visit they became just another birds.
You can experience our digital journey here.
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