KL Bird Park
October 12th 2008 08:47
Every city needs a claim to fame. The biggest, the tallest, the smelliest. There's no importance attached to whether, objectively, it may not be the proudest thing to hang your hat on. Whether its the biggest banana, the fattest resident, the heaviest operable tumor, municpalities seem ready to exclaim records no matter how lame sneering outsiders may deem it. Laying claim to a superlative is above all else a collective self esteem issue.
I, for instance grew up near a town called Tirau that had the biggest corrugated iron sheep in the world. Then to keep it under control they had to build the biggest corrugated iron sheep dog. The residents soon realised that sheep dogs are close to useless without proper instructions so they built a corrugated iron shephard to reign in the dog. The corrugated iron shephard is actually on church land and has that bearded Jesus thing going on but it's unclear whether the shephard is Jesus being a shephard or it's a coincidence or some none too subtle church marketing. I guess its irrelevant because I reckon either way he's the biggest corrugated iron shephard, the biggest corrugated iron Jesus, or the biggest corrugated iron Jesus dressed as a shephard in the world.
With the Petronas Towers Kuala Lumpur had the tallest building in the world for almost a decade. Buildings. Plural. There were two of the monsters. That's a genuine bona fide record. And then along came those Taiwanese misers with their Taipei 101 some 200 feet higher.
To the consolation of the KL residents they still have the world's largest free-flight walk-in aviary. It's not as prestigious when you have to qualify it like that but a record's a record.
It's not a bad way to spend half a day. If you like birds. And I like. Birds.
Everything is in order: the Flamingos are pink and the pelicans are white. Perhaps the parrots aren't quite as adept at swearing as one would hope but they give some sass with enough taunting. The hornbills, described pretty much by their name, are one of the star attractions along with the hawks who, unfortunately despite their residence in the world's largest free-flight aviary, are cooped up in depressingly small cages. And the Parrot Kiosk neither has parrot on the menu nor waiters that are parrots, which is misleading.
As you know, monkies aren't birds, but they roam the grounds as well, stealing bird food and playing with themselves in time honoured monkey fashion.
And if passive birds being birdy aren't entertaining enough for you, then the bird show at the amphitheatre has lorokeets riding bicycles and doing maths which was why I personally made the trip to KL.
If you had to choose, I'd imagine the average resident of Kuala Lumpur would prefer to stick with the Petronas Towers instead of downgrading to an open air aviary but sometimes you have to play the cards you're dealt and a whole bunch of birds under netting is now KL's hand. As long as they don't build an oversized corrugated iron sheep dog.
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