Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

One of the first places that I visited after moving down to KL was the KL Bird Park, thanks to my good friend Nick. :) Seeing that I'm such a newbie and all, he kindly offered to bring me around on the first weekend I was in KL to the famed Bird Park. We reached there around noon, under the extremely hot sun. *gasp*

Bird park, Kuala Lumpur

First things first, tickets! There is a booth at the entrance for ticket purchase, and it costs RM15 for adults with MyKad and RM42 otherwise. So make sure you bring your MyKad along!

Ticket booth

At the entrance of the park, there was this mini man-made waterfall with the banner Taman Burung Kuala Lumpur which literally translates to Bird Park of Kuala Lumpur.

Entrance pond

The funny thing to note is that the first animal I saw once I entered was not a bird! It was 2 monkeys! *LOL*

Monkeys greeting us?

The bird park is nicely maintained with plenty of water falls and ponds surrounding the area. I saw ponds here and there that I sometimes wondered whether I was walking in circles. *LOL*

Mini waterfall

Pond

Shortly, I spotted the first bird! It was a blue peacock! However, it didn't seem to have any feathers left on its tail. :( Poor thing!

Peacock with no tail feathers

The good thing about the bird park here is that they employ an open concept. Most of the birds are left freely flying about around the visitors, except some of the more dangerous/uncontrollable ones in cages. That is why I had the chance to walk up close to the peacock to take a picture with it!

witch with peacock

The wise owl looked like it's sleeping. Or does it always look like this? :P

The wise owl

One of the more popular birds on display in the park was the hornbill. I saw one almost in every 10 minutes. Some were inside a cage, some were flying about freely.

Hornbill

I really feel like touching its very big and hard beak.

Another hornbill

I wonder what bird this was. It looked like hornbill but the beak shape was a little different. And it's got blue colour around its eyes!

*Updated: The bird below is a Toucan. Thanks for the info ;)

Toucan

There were plenty of feeding areas set up for the birds. By feeding area, I meant a dead tree with papayas stuck on its branches. The picture that I took still looked fine, but wait til after the birds attacked the papayas. It's a gross scene you do not want to see.

Feeding on papayas

Sound of water was always distinct surrounding the park, giving it a peace and calm ambience. Very soon I was greeted with another waterfall.

Mini waterfall

While admiring the waterfall, Nick ran up to me and gave me a signal to follow him. He looked really anxious so I ran up to his direction, only to be met with the most prized view! It was a beautiful peacock with its feathers spreaded open! And it was walking about on its own freely, not afraid of people at all. Look at how nice the feathers looked (while they're still around). :)

Beautiful peacock with open feathers

It sort of knew that we were taking pictures of it and started to parade around, even showing us its butt! *LOL* The feathers were so long, I think once spreaded out, they're almost as tall as me. Almost. :P

Back view

Moving on to more other weird birds that I never saw before. Such as this one behind the fence. It looked like an ostrich to me.

Curious bird

Then, there was a whole pond dedicated to the flamingo! Lots and lots of flamingo either swimming or eating by the pond. It was a serene view indeed, just watching them.

Flamingo pond

Flamingos standing

Swimming flamingo

witch at Flamingo pond

I also spotted a pelican, I think! It should be a pelican, cause I googled it! *LOL* It looked like it's constantly shrugging.

Pelican?

Oh, then there was this bright blue bird that I couldn't miss from afar. I have no idea what bird this is, with red eyes to boot.

Bright blue bird (BBB!) *LOL*

When you're tired walking, there is also a gift shop and cafe in the park for you to rest your feet or quench your thirst. The cafe is situated uphill, so you actually get a good view of the park from above. Not to mention the plentiful chirps and sounds of birds accompanying you too. :)

Gift shop and cafe

See what I told you? Another pond! This was filled with plenty of fishes! And the water was surprisingly clear.

Fish pond

Lots of fish

For those who like souvenirs, there is actually an area in the bird park for visitors to take pictures with the birds, trained by the trainers, of course. You pay a fee of RM10 or something, and the trainers will place birds all around you and take a portrait of you! Just like what the family below was doing. :) It's the perfect souvenir to take home.

Picture with birds

Backdrop for picture

Spotted some white parrots in the picture-taking area. They're all so tame and quiet!

White parrots

Just next to the picture-taking area, was this cage with a white macaw. There was even a board outside the cage that stated "My name is Coco"! Haha, so cute! Too bad it didn't speak at all. But I loved its feathers! They're so smooth and dense and shiny. And white! I love white!

My favourite bird - Coco!

Nearby, there was another bird in the cage too. And this bird was more cheeky. Nick tried to tease the bird by placing his finger on the cage and the bird actually tried to claw him! Gosh! And I managed to capture it (accidentally). So fierce, this bird.

Naughty bird trying to claw my friend's finger

Soon, I saw this banner saying World of Parrots, but strangely, they put statues of hornbills on the banner, instead of parrots! That's weird...

World of parrots

I saw another white parrot inside the World of Parrots, but this time it's not caged.

Deep in thought

Another one in red and green.

Red and green parrot

One could also opt to purchase bird feed to feed the parrots, which proved to be quite a popular idea among the visitors.

Parrot-feeding

What is this bird called? It has such a long beak. *Updated: It's a stork! Thanks to khengsiong. :)

Long beak bird - Stork

Since our visit was around noon time, we were lucky to be able to catch the bird show! There's one at 12.30pm and another at 3.30pm daily.

Bird show!

This was the amphitheatre where the bird show was held. Since seats were first come first served basis, one needs to be early to save a seat. It was fully packed on the session that I went.

Amphitheatre

I managed to capture some of the more interesting performances from the show. This was the parrot/macaw (I could never differentiate) cycling.

Cycling parrot

Then this was another parrot saying "Hello" to us.

Speaking macaw

And here is another parrot performing somersaults! So smart. :)

Doing somersaults

Just outside the amphitheatre, I spotted another waterfall yet again. This time, there was even a rainbow underneath! Thankfully, my camera was able to capture that.

Waterfall with rainbow

witch at the falls

The waterfalls front view

The visit to the bird park was really something new to me. Who'd know that in the midst of the hustle and bustle of KL city, there would be a place that exudes calm and tranquility, just a stone's throw away? Definitely a nice place for family outings during weekends. Or for photographers to take pictures. :) And surely for tourists!

Opening hours: Daily from 9am to 6pm

Bharat Coffee House and fresh flowers

Soon, it was my final day in Cameron Highlands and that day turned out to be scorching hot! We went to Tringkap Restaurant again for lunch, since it was reasonably priced and delicious. :) On our way back, we passed by another tea shop by the name of Bharat Tea plantations. Cameron Highlands is so famous for plantations that almost everywhere you look, it's either tea, vegetables or flowers!

Bharat Coffee house

As expected, the coffee shop was deserted when we reached there. Who would want to have tea when the sun was shining as hot as the oven in the middle of the afternoon eh?

Surroundings of coffee house

The famous Cameron Valley tea that you can find from supermarkets, coming all the way from this plantation.

Bharat plantations

There was a tea/souvenir shop just near the coffee house too. A host of different tea leaves were found in this shop. The creative people from the shop also made different hampers using the tea boxes, just to make the appearance more attractive. We didn't stay that long in this plantation because we were already sweating before long! *phew*

Tea shop

Further down the road, my mother suddenly decided that she wanted to pay her relative a visit. I just found out that my mother does have quite a few relatives in Cameron Highlands! All of which I had not met before. *LOL* Anyway, it's never too late eh? After getting directions from the aunty, we finally reached her shop by the roadside. This aunty plants and sells flowers! Oh so gorgeous they were! She offered to take us to the plantations (another jeep adventure) but since it was too hot, we politely declined. Her main crop was gerberas, all kinds of different colours. I fell in love with the bright orange type immediately. :)

Fresh gerberas

Apart from gerberas, there were plenty other types of flowers lying around her shop, most of which I didn't know the names of. There was one interesting flower which was green colour and looked like a ball (see picture below). The 'ball-like' flower was quite cute but it tends to make you to want to pop it open! The interior of the ball was hollow, so if you hold it too tight, it will go out of shape too. Weird type of flower indeed.

Of all colours

Apart from flowers, we also saw those smaller version of flowers that florists use to decorate a bouquet.

More flowers

While admiring the flowers there, I took the chance to do some camwhoring of my own. *shameless* Look I was holding the orange gerberas that I liked! There was also a picture of me with a garland of leaves on my head. *LOL*

Posing with flowers

As usual with all my kind relatives, she asked us to pick any flowers that we liked to bring back home. I think we chose more than 13 small bouquets of gerberas and a host of other different flowers. When we reached home, I gave a try at flower arrangement myself. I think I didn't do that good a job, because I was in a rush. The picture below shows the bouquet that I brought back to Penang. :)

My own bouquet

And that ends my Cameron Highlands trip! Since I missed the chance to go to the flower plantation, I now have a reason to return! :)