Flock to our fabulous flamingo festival
Think pink and flock on down to WWT Washington Wetland Centre this May for our fabulous new Flamingo Festival event (Sunday 15 May).
Join us as we celebrate the beauty of this spectacular waterbird species with a host of fun activities.
Visitors can turn warden for the day by helping to build special volcano-shaped mud nests, which the flamingos then add small stones, straw and feathers to before laying a single egg on top. The best ones will even be used in their real enclosure!
Hear all sorts of fascinating facts and stories at our flamingo talks, enjoy fun storytelling sessions with Faye the Flamingo (below left!) and put yourself in the picture with our flamingo photo facade. Plus face painting, craft activities and a flamingo discovery trail.
With their pretty pink plumage, stilt-like legs and upside-down curved beaks, WWT Washington’s Chilean flamingos are some of the centre’s most popular residents and have lived here since 1986.
Their volcano-shaped nests are made from a pile of mud and they lay a single egg on top, which both parents incubate. Wardens then replace this with an anchored down wooden dummy and take the real one to Waterfowl Nursery, where it is kept in an incubator for 26-31 days. This is a safety precaution in case the lone egg is knocked off the nest by a clumsy parent.
Hours before hatching, the chick begins calling from inside the egg. This establishes a bond with their parents and, in the wild, means that they can find each other within the colony. At this point our wardens return the egg to mam and dad who then rear the chick, which can live to be more than 60-years-old.
Flamingos are numerous in the wild but breed in less than 30 sites worldwide, making them very vulnerable. To help safeguard their future, these stunning birds have been part of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust’s conservation breeding programme for more than 45 years.
WWT Washington’s Flamingo Festival is held on Sunday 15 May and is included in admission (small costs apply for crafts). Kids (aged up to 16 years) go FREE when wearing an article of pink clothing (socks don't count!). Become a WWT member and go FREE as well. Please call 0191 416 5454 or email info.washington@wwt.org.uk for further information.
Fabulous flamingo facts:
• There are six species of flamingo: greater, Caribbean, Andean, James', Chilean and lesser.
• Today, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) has over 600 flamingos at five of its wetland centres and its headquarters at Slimbridge is the only place in Europe that you can see all six species together.
• Flamingos live in large groups called colonies, which can be home to between 10,000 and one million birds at a time.
• Their knees look as if they bend backwards, but this is actually their ankle with a very long foot attached. Their knees are tucked high up beneath their bodies.
