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Can you spot the baby flamingo? Park staff are tickled pink as chick is born
The flamingo's colouful plumage keeping the chick warm PICTURE: Pensthorpe Natural Park - Credit: Pensthorpe Natural Park
A wildlife park has announced the birth of its first flamingo.
Flamingo parents hover over the flamingo chick and an unhatched egg PICTURE: Pensthorpe Natural Park - Credit: Pensthorpe Natural Park
The flamingo chick hatched at Pensthorpe Natural Park, near Fakenham, on Sunday after 14 eggs were laid two weeks before. The chick is the first flamingo born in the 15 years the park has kept flamingos.
All the other eggs were infertile, and the parents are keeping the baby warm in their nest, feeding it by mouth. A new flamingo habitat was installed last year, as the group of 49 flamingos, known as a flamboyance, almost doubled within a year.
The egg hatched quite late into the season, and there is concern over how the chick will handle autumn weather when it is too large to fit under its parent's wing.
Also, at least four baby red squirrels have been born at the park so far this year.
Flamingo parents look at their chick in the autumn air PICTURE: Pensthorpe Natural Park - Credit: Pensthorpe Natural Park
The red squirrel kittens were born about eight weeks ago, but due to squirrels' secretive nature, wardens first saw the babies in the past week. They say more may be hiding in the enclosure.
The chick under its parents wing, expectantly pecking at its parents beak for food PICTURE: Pensthorpe Natural Park - Credit: Pensthorpe Natural Park
A red squirrel at Pensthorpe Nature Reserve. At least four baby squirrels have been born at the park so far this year. Picture: Ian Burt - Credit: Ian Burt
