Cutting a forlorn figure among its colourful family, Flimgo the flamingo chick pads around the waters' edge with its grey coat. The colour of its coat is all down to an inability to digest various nutrients which will gradually turn it pink like its fellow flamingos at Harewood House's Bird Garden in Leeds, West Yorks.

Flimgo is the first flamingo to be born there and at six months is still too young for curators to know the creature's sex. It will be another six months before that all becomes clear. It will also be around that time that he or she can consume the seaweed that holds the nutrients which will turn its plumage pink.

 

 

 

It's been a tough start to life for Flimgo as its blind mother and four siblings were killed when a marauding mink broke into the refuge.

Bird garden curator John Waller said: 'When the mothers were sat on the nests  there were four more eggs about to hatch. 'We'd had the eggs checked and they were all fertile, but sadly the mink came along, got one of the females who was blind and took all the eggs. 'It was an American aquatic mink which are very difficult to fence out.'

The all-black American mink is not native to England but got into the wild  after being released from fur farms by animal rights activists or by escaping  themselves from captivity. But fledgling Flimgo has survived against all the odds and is now big enough to huddle alongside the 18-strong flock of Chilean flamingos. John said: 'The parents look after Flimgo very well. They would stand over but also wander away so that they didn't attract predators. 'It doesn't become sexually mature until the bird's six or seven months old and it will be at least a year before we know what sex it is which is why we chose the name Flimgo.

'It would be nice to have more. There were only four or five zoos in the country who successfully bred flamingos this year. We're very proud.'



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