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On a windy day in 2005 in Kan., Wichita, Number 492 made its escape.
Workers at the Sedgwick County Zoo forgot to clip the wings of African flamingos; it was a painless care that kept the beloved birds from flying into the dangerous world outside.
The zoo was unable to retrieve the bird before it flew away from Kansas, and it faced long odds of survival in a region of the country where there are no other flamingos and few environments to suit their needs.
David Foremana driver and fishing guide She didn’t know any of this when she set off on a boat in Port Lavaca with a friend on March 10 this year in Edna, Texas.
Their customers often claim to see flamingos, confusing them with the smaller but also pink rose-shaped spoonbills common on the Gulf Coast. He patiently explains to them that no, there are no flamingos in Texas. He told this to hundreds of people.
But that day he couldn’t believe his eyes. There was a tall, graceful bird standing on one leg, as flamingos often do. He zoomed in on his phone’s camera as close as possible, looking for evidence of what seemed unbelievable.
“My brain was telling me, ‘You can’t look at a flamingo,’ but my eyes were telling me, ‘That’s it, no misunderstanding,'” said Mr. Foreman, who had grown into a bird. shelter.
He’ll have to update his speech, he thought.
“It’s almost like nature’s way of putting me in my place,” said Mr. Foreman. “Mr. Everything thinks there are no flamingos in Texas? Check this out.”
Wildlife officials in Texas said it was definitely number 492. He was given this name because he has had a tag with this number on one leg since he came to the zoo from Tanzania in 2003. (Texas officials have since given him the nickname Pink Floyd.)
The boatmen were too far away to see the label. But Julie Hagen, a social media expert with the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, said the number 492 was seen in the same area and around the same time of year as it was seen in past years.
“We have no reason to believe it was another flamingo,” he said.
Estimated to be about 20 years old, No. It was confirmation that despite the 492 coming out on its own, it was still resisting.
His journey would fit comfortably into a Pixar movie script.
492 was one of 40 flamingos that came to the Kansas zoo in 2003. Most of the birds were probably 3 years old, said Scott Newland, curator of birds at the zoo. He said in an interview in 2018.
She described feather clipping, the care that keeps birds on the ground, as painless, “no different than getting a haircut for you or me.” It should be repeated every year as the birds shed their feathers and new ones emerge.
In June 2005, however, personnel overlooked signs that Flight 492’s wings needed to be clipped, and the bird flew into a drainage channel in Wichita along with another No. 347 flamingo.
On July 4 – seriously, Independence Day – the birds flew out of Wichita forever, flying south on No. 492 and north on No. 347.
347 was never seen again and probably never survived the winter. Yet No. 492 found a suitable environment in Texas, with its shallow, brackish wetlands, high year-round temperatures, and abundant food sources.
He even encountered a longtime companion: A Caribbean flamingo, which may have flown north during a tropical storm, was spotted at number 492 in 2006, but they haven’t been seen together since 2013.
“Although they are two different species, they are so similar that they will be very happy to see each other,” Mr. Newland said in 2018. “They are two solitary birds in some kind of alien habitat. They don’t have to be there, so they stayed together because there was a bond.”
In the wild, flamingos can live into their 40s. Predators include foxes and lynxes, but since flamingos pose little threat to humans and are not considered birds of prey, No. 492 probably doesn’t have to worry about predators.
Mrs. Hagen, No. It’s been seen nearly every year since 492 found its way to Texas, typically in the spring, she said. It’s unclear whether the flamingo has made Texas its permanent home or if the state is part of an as-yet-undiscovered immigration pattern.
Mr. Foreman first posted the video on his own Facebook and Instagram pages, and his friends called it No. He warned of the back story of 492 and how rare sight is. “It’s definitely a moment to remember,” he said.
“A flamingo in South Texas,” he said. “Wow. Who would have thought.”
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