Mysterious, tagged flamingo appears in Elkhorn Slough.
See how the sacred old flamingoes come…” wrote William Butler Yeats. Chances are, he was talking about Ireland, but he could just as well have been talking about the Elkhorn Slough wetlands. A solitary flamingo has been spotted there, and it’s drawing a crowd. After all, flamingoes are native to Africa and South America, not to California.
It probably didn’t cross the ocean to get here. There’s a tag on its leg, indicating that it probably escaped from a zoo. But which zoo? None of them has reported a missing bird recently. Fortunately for local residents, the flamingo, which stands at just over three feet, seems to have found a good home. “Pinky,” as it is called, has already made friends with the local pelicans and avocets, and has found plenty of shrimp-like creatures to eat in the wetlands. In fact, it is the beta carotene in their food that gives flamingos their distinctive pink color.
Flamingos were last spotted in the area in the early 1970s. For a chance to see it—as well as 340 other species of birds—contact the Elkhorn]http://www.elkhornslough.org/]Elkhorn Slough[/url].
Read More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
