Who’s who - a guide to our Chilean flamingos

Our flock of Chilean flamingos is as flamboyant as they come, but each has an individual story. But how do we tell them apart?

With great difficulty visually speaking, however, our flamingos all have special leg rings featuring numbers or letters that help us ID them. This supports us during health checks and we keep a record of each individual’s history in an online system. From this we know where they hatched and when, if they're male or female (M/F) and any medical information.

Here's a roundup of some of our flamingos leg ring ID numbers so you can try your hand at spotting them and learning a bit more background to some of our pink feathered friends!

The 11 Chilean flamingos celebrating their 40th birthdays this year hatched at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire in 1984.

FUX (F) TBF (F) TAB (F) HIZ (F) FUB (M) FUA (M) FUI (M) FUH (M) FUJ (M) FUC (M) FUS (F)

Our oldest flamingos are 42 years old! They also hatched at WWT Slimbridge in 1982.

FFD (F) FUF (F)

Our youngest flamingos are 5 years old. They hatched here at WWT Washington in 2019.

TDF (F) GUP (F)

We don’t name all of our birds here at WWT Washington, but there are some of our Chilean flamingos that were named by the team after hatching and being hand-reared here by our fantastic team. Keep an eye out for them too!

Hatched in 2012: 2FU - Flo (M) TAH - Phil (F) 2FY - Frankie (F) 2FN - Fran (F)

Hatched in 2013: BJZ - Marty (M) BJV - Mickey (M) BIW - Mello (M) BJK - Charlie (M) BJJ - Stella (M) BJY - Jay (F) BJF - Zayn (F) BJT - Perrie (F) BJW - Sam (M) BJG - Ringo (M) BIY - Bella (M) BJU - Joanna (M) BJS - Scarlet (M) BIV - Roberto (F) 2FV - Muffin (F) BJP - Phyllis (M) BJN - Ross (M)

Hopefully this will help you get to know our Chilean flamingo flock a bit better. Join us for our daily talks (11.45am and 2.45pm) and see if you can spot any of them during your visit!

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