Meet the gay flamingos

Meet the gay flamingos

In the pink, males who set up a love nest and raised chicks from adopted eggs

By James Mills
THEY both look pretty in pink and they are model parents.



Meet Carlos and Fernando, the gay flamingos.

The love birds surprised staff at their wildlife reserve when they came out of the avian closet five years ago and began performing complex mating rituals with each other.

They have been inseparable ever since and have even raised chicks together after stealing eggs from their heterosexual neighbours.

Flamingos, although monogamous during breeding periods, usually find a different partner each year.

So the enduring love of Carlos and Fernando is all the more remarkable.

?'They only have eyes for each other,' said Nigel Jarrett, a keeper at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire.

?'I have never seen two male flamingos fall for each other before, although homosexuality is not uncommon in the animal kingdom.

?'Carlos and Fernando have been together for five years and seem very happy. They will probably stay together for the rest of their lives.'

The mating ritual involves elaborate preening and strutting. The males are most energetic, waving their heads vigorously from side to side with their necks at full stretch. Mr Jarrett says that both Carlos and Fernando take on the male roles during the courtship dance. Their parental instincts are also strong, prompting them to raid the nests of other couples in the flock.

?'They are both large adult males, so as a partnership they are quite formidable,' said Mr Jarrett.

?'They are not picked on by the other birds. If anything, they are afforded more respect.

?'They are very good parents and behave just as the heterosexual birds do when rearing their young.'

Females lay one egg in a mud nest. It is incubated by both parents and hatches after 28 days.

For the first three or four weeks, young flamingos are fed on ?'crop milk', a pink, nutritious liquid produced by both parents, so Carlos and Fernando have no problem feeding their adopted young.

So far, the gay dads have raised three chicks.

The pair are greater flamingos (phoenicopterus roseus), the most widely dispersed of the six flamingo species, being found in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. The average lifespan is about 30 years.

Homosexual behaviour has been observed in many species, including penguins, beetles, sheep, bats, dolphins and orang utans.