Above, Baron named for the team eventually came about after the Barons donated the soil, called pitchers clay.
By Anne Ruisi
You could say the Birmingham Barons directed the stork to the Birmingham Zoos American flamingo exhibit earlier this summer when, for the first time, two baby flamingos were hatched.
Thats because soil from the pitchers mound at the Barons home stadium at Regions Field persuaded the future parents to build nests and hatch their babies, called flaminglets.
Its a big deal for us because its the first time theyve hatched. Not everyones flamingos will hatch, Hollie Colahan, the zoos deputy director, said. You have to have everything right for them.
Everything right means happy, healthy birds and the exact type of soil composition that will inspire flamingos to build nests.
The little birds, Pinecone and Baron named for the team eventually came about after the Barons donated the soil, called pitchers clay, when the pitchers mound was switched out with new soil, said Jennifer Ogilvie, the zoos marketing and public relations manager.
Pitchers clay is a combination of clay and sand. After the soil was taken in, the birds did the rest, including building the nest and making sure it was nice and wet so they could manipulate it to get it just right. The nests can be up to 2 feet tall but are worn down a bit since the chicks were hatched about seven weeks ago, said Kristen Eversole, a zoo birdkeeper who works with the flamingos.
While they are now on the same special diet as the adult flamingos, at first the parents dribbled crop milk into their mouths to feed them, Eversole said.
The parents are very involved, Eversole said. Pinecones parents took good care of him, but Barons parents rejected him at five days.
While zoo staff doesnt know why he was rejected, Baron had to be hand fed by zoo staff and is the more outgoing of the two. Hes a noisy little bird who chirps loudly and constantly around people because if he sees a human, he thinks hes going to get food, Eversole said.
Baron weighs about 4.4 pounds, and Pinecone is about 3.3 pounds, she said.
Seen from a distance on a recent sweltering afternoon, the 19 flamingos at the Birmingham Zoo stand so still in their classic one-legged stance that they almost appear to be yard decorations.
The cute little balls of gray fluff making their way on stick-like legs through the tall green grass of the exhibit trigger movement by the adults, who leisurely strut about their enclosure as the little birds rush to the fence to greet visitors.
While it takes about a year for a baby flamingos soft gray down to molt into the beautiful pink and coral feathers that make a flamingo so distinctive, the process is beginning on these little ones. Eversole extends one of Barons wings a bit and shows how hes starting to get his pink, coral and white flight feathers. The underside edge of the wing is black, just as it is in the adults.
Flamingos can fly, but the zoo trims the birds wings so they dont take off. If there is a strong wind and they hop the fence, the birds want to return to the enclosure because they are flock animals, Eversole said.
We gently bring them back if they need some help, she said.
During the day Pinecone and Baron roam the flamingo exhibit, which has an island where their nests were built and a large pond. At night the little ones are safely tucked into the flamingo building.
There are still (wild) hawks, raptor and mink that roam the area, Eversole said.
Continue reading here:
This Nest is Just Right: Fuzzy Gray Flaminglets Are the First Flamingos Hatched at the Birmingham Zoo - Over the Mountain Journal
