The Rare Bird Review

Flamingo news from around the world.

From the July 25 San Francisco Chronicle article reviewing gardens in London:

Kensington Roof Garden

A latter-day British peer, Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin Group airline and entertainment fame, owns this 1 1/2-acre, open-air garden, so it is often closed for swank soirees such as photo shoots and record launch parties. It was closed the day we visited, but the stylish restaurant Babylon, one floor up from the garden, kindly allowed us to walk around its terrace and view the garden from above.

Laid out in 1938 on the roof of the former Derry and Tom's department store, the six-story-high garden has good views of London, is festooned with large trees, ponds, herbaceous borders and lovely flowering plants and includes an English woodland garden with a stream and ducks.

If you see thin, pink apparitions moving about, it's not just the cocktails kicking in; they're the garden's live flamingos.

From the July 25 Quad City Times an article on the Quad City Bix7 mini-marathon comes news that:

The Pink Flamingos received top prize in the group category. The group consisted of Mary Gloeckner of Moline and members of daughter Anne’s former Moline High School cross country team. Theresa Sorg, a member of the group and a student at the University of Iowa, will donate her winnings to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society when she competes in her first marathon Dec. 12 in Hawaii.

From the San Antonio Express News comes word that the "Running of the Bull" festival in Eldorado. Texas, included a craft booth selling flamingo yard ornaments made from plastic, PVC pipe. Sadly no pictures were available.

Finally the National Geographic Society produced a film and an article regarding homosexual behavaior in animals that contained the following paragraphs:

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo have been inseparable for six years now. They display classic pair-bonding behavior—entwining of necks, mutual preening, flipper flapping, and the rest. They also have sex, while ignoring potential female mates.

Wild birds exhibit similar behavior. There are male ostriches that only court their own gender, and pairs of male flamingos that mate, build nests, and even raise foster chicks.

Well, at least they're domestic about it and not out at pink bath-houses or using cheap pick-up lines in bars while sipping pina coladas.