Baby Flamingos step out for Easter in Rome

A baby flamingo at Rome's zoo.  Photo Credit: Massimiliano Di Giovanni

Dear Blog Readers,

Last Thursday I was between editing the Pope’s Easter Thursday Chrism Mass (where he blesses all the vats of oil to be used in Rome parishes for the year), covering an Amnesty International press conference on how they will be monitoring hate speech used on social media by politicians running in the European Elections (it seems it is increasing dramatically) and preparing for an interview with 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (who came to Rome this week), when I got an email from my friend Serena, the press officer at the Rome zoo.

Drop everything, breaking news!  Four baby flamingos born at the zoo and more about to emerge!  Now I should have smiled and moved on, but Serena knows how to get my attention.  There were four photos attached of these adorable little creatures.  Mozzarella Mamma was smitten, and, after all, it is Easter Week, eggs and pink fluffy things are on the agenda.  So, I did drop everything and went with AP Television cameraman Gigi Navarra straight to the zoo (known as the Bioparco) to  check them out.

They did not let us down.  There were several fluffy grey baby flamingos with large, webbed feet huddling near their tall, pink, leggy parents.  They were all born in the last two days and several large eggs were still perched on the top of cone-like dirt nests.  Flamingos apparently lay only one egg at a time.

Anxious flamingo parents squawk, flap their wings, and tangle their necks as they protect their newborns and hover over their eggs.

The anxious parents stood around the nests squawking at each other, tangling with their long pink necks and beaks, making a racket as they nervously protected their newborns and their eggs. (You remember those parental moments? Why is he crying?  Why won’t he stop?  He’s hungry!? He needs a diaper change!? He has to burp?! Why is he turning red?  Do something!!  Flap, flap, squawk, squawk)

The zookeeper, Yitzhak Yadid, told us that male and female flamingos have an unusually egalitarian relationship, over the thirty-day incubation period they spend equal time sitting on their nests and then share feeding responsibilities, inserting bits of regurgitated food into their baby’s beak.

Each baby flamingo weighs about 100 grams (4 ounces) and the
zookeepers still do not know their sex; they can only discover that with a DNA test.

The babies are still grey; they will turn pink as they get older after eating carotene that is in a small crustacean which is part of their diet.

I do try to be a serious journalist but sometimes it is much more fun to be the zoo correspondent!

Happy Easter from Rome!

 

 Photo Credit: Massimiliano Di Giovanni

8 thoughts on “Baby Flamingos step out for Easter in Rome”

  1. Joan Schmelzle

    Hi Trisha,
    What a delightful Easter story. There certainly is a need for “non serious” journalism, and this Easter is probably one of the times we need this.
    Buena Pasqua!
    Joan

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Thanks Joan — yes, all the serious stories I do start to get one done after a while. We have the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, Brexit, Notre Dame burning down, global warming etc etc etc. The baby flamingos were a lovely change. Happy Easter to you!

  2. O this is delicious! And so Eastery! And just exactly what we nee – chicks, a staple on Easter art, real chicks, and flamingo chicks at that. They look, in these pictures, like all babies do – fragile, hope-filled, more than a bit scared, and trusting – what other allure can they use in their fragility, than to melt our hearts with their trusting eyes – and more than the Mueller report, more than the Notre Dame fire, they mean something that goes beyond words. Like the beauty of Parisians singing to their burning church, for hours, these young chicks hold our love and call forth our good will. Thanks, Trisha, for dropping everything for this.

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Nancy, I wish I could write like you. You have such a beautiful way of putting everything into context and perspective. Thank you so much for your comment. Happy Easter to you.

  3. Who doesn’t love a story with fluffy pink things in it? Sorry to be late to the party (after Easter) but I was delighted to read this light-hearted piece tonight. I loved Nancy’s comment and agree with her. Hope you had a wonderful Easter, Trisha. PS – I met Katherine Wilson a couple of weeks ago, when she spoke at Dorothea’s House, the Italian cultural institute here in Princeton where I’m on the board. She was a delight!

    1. Trisha Thomas

      Hi Linda, great to hear from you!! Katherine Wilson is a delight!! I hope she is working on another book.

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