National Aviary introduces newborn flamingo chicks — and they aren’t pink
The fluffy 20-ounce flamingo chick waddled into the Rose Garden at the National Aviary, keeping up a steady stream of chirps and tweets as it followed Travis Henderson, one of the people who feeds it every day.
The 27-day-old chick and two others walked right up to about 30 children and adults Friday at the Aviary’s “Chick Talk,” much to the delight of the humans.
“Flamingos are social birds. They are not anxious here at all,” said Mr. Henderson, who is chief aviculturist at the North Side facility. “These birds trust us and are happy to be carried around” by the staff. “Flamingos are gregarious and they love attention,” which includes the daily Chick Talk programs at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Many in the audience were surprised to see that the chicks aren’t pink, except for their webbed feet. Their downy feathers are white with a dusting of light gray. Pink feathers start to grow in when they are 12 months old, and they will be bright pink at 18 months.
The color comes from their diet of shrimp and other items containing high concentrations of carotenoid pigments.
Five eggs were hatched in an incubator at the Aviary between June 23 to July 9.
On Friday, the head of that first chick to hatch was not quite kneehigh to Mr. Henderson. In 17 months, it will be 5 feet tall and fully grown.
Though the aviary has seven adult flamingos that live in the Wetlands exhibit, none is related to the chicks.
The aviary’s flamingos coexist peacefully, but they don’t mate, probably because their flock is too small, said Robin Weber, senior director of marketing and communications. In the wild, flocks can have as many as 10,000 flamingos.
The 37 flamingos at the Columbus Zoo regularly mate and produce eggs, and staff there gave five eggs to the National Aviary.
After 28 days in an incubator set at 98 degrees, the first crack appeared in one of the eggs, Mr. Henderson said. “It was very exciting watching the hatching. It’s an extremely difficult process” for the chicks.
Their feathers will be DNAtested to determine which ones are males and which are females.
There are six species of flamingos in the world. Though the official name for the ones in Pittsburgh is American Flamingos, their habitat in the wild is mostly Caribbean islands, with some in Florida, he said.
Chick Talks will continue for several weeks and are included with the regular admission. For an extra $40, visitors can schedule a Flamingo Encounter, which is a private meeting with the chicks, which they will be permitted to pet.
Ultimately the chicks will be integrated into the aviary flock. That will be done gradually because “our flock has never seen chicks,” Mr. Henderson said.