Did You Hear The One About The Gay Flamingos And Their Adopted Chick?

Okay, so this story doesn’t quite fall into the crazy animal story category. It’s more of an endearing tale of two birds in love — two gay flamingos in Slimbridge, England, to be exact.

After six years as a couple, the duo has been given the opportunity to be parents to an abandoned baby flamingo.

Fernando and Carlos have wanted a baby for so long; they’ve even tried chasing fellow flamingos at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) from their nests in and effort to take over the eggs.

So when one of the Greater Flamingo nests was abandoned, the life-partners were the first in line to take care of the egg.

“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,” says Jane Waghorn, spokeswoman for the WWT. She goes on to say, “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.”

Gay flamingos are not as uncommon as one might think. Waghorn notes, “If there aren’t enough females or they don’t hit it off with them, they will pair off with other males.” That’s very interesting. Don’t you think?

The male flamingos, by the way, will be able to feed their new baby by producing milk in their throats. Now that’s crazy!