SEVEN fluffy white Chilean flamingo chicks are on display at a zoo in southwestern England for the first time since 2018 — and one is particularly notable for the way it made its entrance. Two male flamingos named Arthur and Curtis successfully hatched an egg together — a first for the Paignton Zoo. The zoo has had several all-male pairings during past breeding seasons, so the same-sex couple is not an unexpected turn of events, said Pete Smallbones, the zoo’s curator of birds. But the zoo is not sure exactly how the couple acquired the egg. “It’s likely that this egg became available — unprotected, kind of just left in a nest — and then they’ve taken the opportunity,” said Pete Smallbones, the zoo’s curator of birds. “As a bird department, we’re more than aware of how it’s a known thing for flamingos, penguins and other species to have same sex pairings. So, it wasn’t a shock — I suppose it was a slight surprise, just because it wasn’t quite the expected (male and female pairing).” During breeding season, the couples usually spend more time together and follow each other around the enclosure, but a pairing is confirmed when two birds pick a nest to share, where they will take turns sitting on the mud mound with or without an egg. This year, however, a same-sex pair had an egg to sit on. The successful hatching between two males highlights the social birds’ innate parental instincts and flexibility, experts say. Chilean flamingos can be finicky when it comes to breeding. In the wild, observations have shown the species to avoid breeding for up to nine years as the birds wait for weather and environmental conditions to be just right, Smallbones said. But even at the zoo, which provides their preferred mud nests, they often don’t breed every year. Curtis and Arthur’s chick, which does not have a name yet, is almost a month old and appears to be thriving, Smallbones said. “The parents are obviously doing a great job.” The chick has been observed exploring the exhibit with another chick roughly the same age but will still return to Curtis and Arthur for food. While the two males are the only same-sex pairing the zoo is aware of this breeding season, the zoo could potentially welcome more chicks this year as several eggs are still incubating. A number of other zoos have observed same-sex pairings among certain bird species. There are even several egg-hatching success stories, such as in 2007 when the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire entrusted an abandoned egg to two male flamingos, and in 2018 when two male penguins at Sydney’s Sea Life Aquarium also became adopted parents to a chick. “Being in a same sex pair is a relatively common occurrence in captive flamingos, because of small flock sizes,” said Paul Rose, a biologist and senior lecturer on animal behavior at the University of Exeter. “Actually hatching an egg is more unusual. These two male flamingos were likely very keen to nest but could not attract a female partner and so the same urge to nest brought them together.” Sometimes, same-sex flamingo pairs have been observed disrupting other nests — as Chilean flamingos nest as a flock — in an attempt to obtain eggs of their own, Rose said. “I am not surprised that two male flamingos are successful in raising a chick because of their social flexibility, but I don’t believe it would have been their first choice of breeding partner.” In the wild, Chilean flamingo flock sizes can be in the hundreds during breeding season, according to Rose. (SD-Agencies) | 