Above: Video of flamingo couple at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park caring for their new chick.
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A pair of male flamingos, a same-sex couple, at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park have successfully welcomed a baby chick together.
The newly minted dads hatched their chick on Aug. 25. After some time bonding time behind the scenes, the family is now out for public viewing at the Escondido park, a San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance spokesperson said.
The three flamingos are all “lesser flamingos,” a species native to sub-Saharan Africa and western India. The youngster’s parents are each about 40 years old.
According to the Wildlife Alliance, the two bonded males began sitting on a nest earlier this year, prompting the Safari Park’s care specialists to give the couple a fake egg to keep them busy and prevent them from interfering with others’ shelters.
The two immediately began caring for the placebo, alternating brooding responsibilities. After a bit of time, the Wildlife Alliance said specialists swapped out the fake egg for a real one for them to foster.
Now that it’s hatched, the two dads have been caring for the baby chick, whose sex is not yet known. The little flamingo is about the size of a tennis ball and full of gray down feathers.
Over the last few weeks, its parents have perfected their fatherly duties, the Wildlife Alliance says, feeding the baby flamingo a kind of “milk” called crop milk that comes from the upper digestive tract — something both male and female flamingos are able to produce.
The hatchling will begin to get weaned off the milk by the time its reaches two months of age.
The lesser flamingo chick has also started to flock with its young peers in a crèche, a large group of hatchlings overseen by a few adults. Parents will visit these groups when it’s time for feeding, sending out a unique call their baby will recognize them by.
Same-sex parenting among flamingos is a well-documented phenomenon, experts say, although it is still relatively rare.
However, it is at least the second instance of it in the U.S. this year: Back in August, a pair of male Chilean flamingos at a Colorado zoo successfully hatch and raise a chick together.
The same-sex lesser flamingo couple and its newborn at the San Diego Safari Park can be found in the zoo’s African Outpost.