Awwwww...

by hilzoy

From the Daily Mail:

"When a newly-hatched flamingo chick was abandoned by its mother and father, the search for surrogate parents did not take long.

Carlos and Fernando, the only gays in the bird sanctuary, were the automatic choice. (...)

WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn said: "Fernando and Carlos are a same sex couple who have been known to steal other Flamingos' eggs by chasing them off their nest because they wanted to rear them themselves.

"They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents.

Jane Waghorn added "They have really bonded with the chick and are very good at being protective parents - finally to one of their own.""

Aren't they gorgeous?

"The pair, who have been together for six years, can feed their chick without any female help, by producing milk in their throat. It will be two years before its sex is known. (...)

Flamingos, although monogamous during breeding periods, usually find a different partner each year, making the enduring love of Carlos and Fernando all the more remarkable.

"They only have eyes for each other," said Nigel Jarrett, a keeper at Slimbridge.

"They will probably stay together for the rest of their lives.""

Comments

[Slartibartfast]

Mmmm...flamingo.

[cleek]

some things are prettier from a distance

[CaseyL]

That's sweet.

I wonder how Carlos and Fernando found each other. That is, I wonder what flamingo mating rituals are like: do they start by hanging out in groups and eventually find the one they like best, as albatrosses (and human teenagers) do?

Are there enough gay birds in a flock so that all the gay birds can find a partner? Or are they situationally gay: they fall in love with* a particular individual, and it doesn't matter what gender that individual is?

I wonder if they've stayed together monogamously precisely because no egg laying is involved. If a species is "programmed" to prefer genetic variation in producing offspring, then the act of laying eggs might trigger a chemical/behavioral cue to find someone else next time. No egg = no cue.

*I know some people dislike anthropomorphizing animals by ascribing what are considered "human emotions" to them. I've never agreed with that, because I've never understood why we have to think animals are incapable of such emotions.

The more I watch animals I've known best, the more obvious it is that animals do indeed have as full and complex an emotional range as humans.

What they think of their own emotions - whether they agonize over picking a partner, whether they wonder why they feel the way they do, whether they ever look back and think they'd've been happier with someone else; whether they romance each other throughout their partnership or create some equivalent to poems on the subject; what a mate-for-life animal thinks and feels if it loses its mate - that's something I'd really love to know.

[Jim Parish]

CaseyL, you might find Bernd Heinrich's Mind of the Raven interesting. In this context, the following passage seems noteworthy:
"...I previously had one pair of ravens, two very large dominant brothers, who bonded and built a perfect nest, then fought viciously when one tried to mate with the other at egg-laying time, i.ee., just when the nest was finished. From this I deduced that the condition of the nest, rather than the condition of the female, is likely the cue for mating."

[Ara]

Stealing eggs by chasing others off their nests! Oh My God! It's the Homosexual Agenda!

[Anderson]

Let a buncha pink birds inna zoo, whadya expect?

[John Thullen]

Do they speak Arabic?

[godoggo]

Oh, I think they're just divine.

[Hartmut]

Do they speak Arabic?
No that would be Aras not Flamingoes (those speak a Dutch dialect)

[dutchmarbel]

Belgians usually feel insulted if you say that Hartmut ;)

Caseyl: The article I linked to in my comment about this adoption says;

Gay flamingos are not particularly rare and enjoy an elevated status with their choice of partner.

"If there aren't enough females or they don't hit it off with them, they will pair off with other males," Ms Waghorn said.

[Hartmut]

Belgians usually feel insulted if you say that Hartmut ;)

I am aware of that and could even consider that a bonus ;-)

[Anderson]

Ah, Belgian flamingoes. No wonder.

[hairshirthedonist]

Thanks for bringing up Belgians. Now I'm craving a Leffe at twenty of ten in the morning.

[Edward_]

They really are the gayest birds imaginable, flamingos. Except, perhaps, for peacocks. Although penguins have that sterotypical fastidiousness down pat, at least in looks, and... but I digress.

I loved Sullivan's response to this story:

They are engaging in what the Vatican calls an "intrinsic evil." How does the Vatican know caring for and rearing a chick that might otherwise perish is evil? Because natural law says so. Meanwhile, nature seems to be ignoring the voice of God, as interpreted by the Pope. Time to excommunicate Planet Earth?

[hilzoy]

OT: Wolfowitz got dumped. I've been waiting for that one ever since he started blaming her, which, um, I didn't take as a sign of a flourishing relationship.

[Jackmormon]

Good for Shaha Ali Reza.

[Jesurgislac]

Wolfowitz got dumped. I've been waiting for that one ever since he started blaming her

"Meanwhile, a World Bank source told us Ali Riza may be returning to the bank's main Washington offices after Wolfowitz officially steps down."

Oh, good. So Wolfowitz didn't permanently wreck her career.

[rilkefan]

"Time to excommunicate Planet Earth?"

I think only the surface is sinful.

[cleek]

I think only the surface is sinful.

there's something unholy about the center, too - so i've heard.

maybe the mantle is worth saving.

[Erasmussimo]

I can see the right-wing blog headlines now:

"Faggot Flamingos Prey Upon Helpless Orphans!"

[jpe]

Their love is a threat to my marriage!

[Jesurgislac]

omg, jpe, you married a flamingo?

[SimonK]

Interesting it was reported as straight news (ahem) in the Daily Mail. Not a newspaper normally sympathetic to the homosexual agenda, I'd have expected them to speculate about oestrogen impersonating compounds in the zoo's water, or the influence of nearby village people concerts. Times change, I guess.

[Gary Farber]

More traitorous acts at the Justice Department as these dreadful findings are reported:

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has found that General Services Administration chief Lurita Alexis Doan violated the federal Hatch Act when she allegedly asked GSA political appointees during a January briefing how they could "help our candidates" win the next election, according to a report by the office.

The Hatch Act restricts executive branch employees from using their position for political purposes. The special counsel's office, which investigates alleged violations of the law, said it would recommend that President Bush take disciplinary action against Doan, including possible removal from office.

"Her actions, to be certain, constitute an obvious misuse of her official authority and were made for the purpose of affecting the result of an election," investigators said in a copy of the 19-page report obtained by The Washington Post. "One can imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act than to invoke the machinery of an agency, with all its contracts and buildings, in the service of a partisan campaign to retake Congress and the Governors' mansions."

More government departments in revolt against the President! The Islamofascists are everywhere!

[Jesurgislac]

The Daily Mail is as susceptible to romantic love between flamingos as anyone else, evidently.

Oh, apparently the military has fired three more Arabic translators for being gay...

[raj]

Those flamingos are white. I had been led to believe that flamingos were pink.

j/k

[raj]

Oh, apparently the military has fired three more Arabic translators for being gay...

Maybe they can go to work for one of those gov't contractors at ten times the pay.

[CaseyL]

Those flamingos are white. I had been led to believe that flamingos were pink.

It depends on their diet. There's a specific type of shrimp that imparts that hot-pink hue to flamingo feathers. If they're not being fed that shrimp (and they can be eating a perfectly good diet without it) their feathers fade to pale.

[Hartmut]

Hm, does that mean there is a correlation between eating shrimps and being gay? There is this fancy theory that pork makes gay. True Americans of course eat beef and catch BSE (b#ll sh#t esteem) unlike the sissy Europeans ;-).

[Anarch]

Nono... pork makes delicious!