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Pink Flamingo Day
"The flamingo's a lovely bird,
With feathers pink and legs absurd."
A kilt in this tartan will definitely make you stand out from the flock! One of the few birds in the world to sport a naturally pink appearance, the flamingo owes its distinctive colour to pigments called carotenoids found in the algae, crustaceans, and tiny shrimp that make up its diet. Without these pigments, a flamingo's feathers would gradually fade to a much paler peach or whitish shade. Even flamingo chicks begin life covered in soft grey down before developing their famous rosy plumage as they mature.
Flamingos are remarkable birds in other ways too. They are famous for balancing on one leg, a behaviour thought to help conserve body heat, and their uniquely shaped bills are specially adapted for filter-feeding upside down in shallow water. Despite their elegant appearance, flamingos are surprisingly noisy and sociable creatures, gathering in large colonies that can number in the thousands. A group of flamingos is delightfully known as a "flamboyance"—one of the most fitting collective nouns in the animal kingdom!
If you are not fortunate enough to live where a flamboyance of flamingos can be seen in the wild, you can still add a splash of pink to your landscape with a few plastic or metallic flamingos. These cheerful lawn ornaments became a symbol of mid-century kitsch in the 1950s, bringing a touch of tropical sunshine to suburban gardens. Their popularity even inspired the tradition of "flocking," in which friends or fundraisers secretly fill someone's yard with a dozen—or sometimes hundreds—of pink flamingos under cover of darkness. Far from being an insult, getting "flocked" is often regarded as a pink-hued badge of honour. Of course, there's no need to wait for pranksters—you can always flock your own garden for an instant burst of colour and whimsy.
Get flocked and think pink! 💗 🖤 🧡 ❤️ 💛 🦩🦩🦩
Pink Flamingo Day was declared in 2007 by the mayor of Leominster, Massachusetts to honour the work of Don Featherstone, creator of the pink plastic lawn flamingo, a whimsical garden front lawn fixture that you can still see every now and then.
Don Featherstone created the iconic piece in 1957 while working for Union Products. He based his design on photographs of flamingos from National Geographic because he was unable to get real flamingos to use as models. In 1996, Featherstone was awarded the 1996 Ig Nobel Art Prize (a parody of the Nobel Prize) for his creation of the pink flamingo.
There are six species of real modern flamingos and most of them live in Asia, Africa, and South America. Flamingos are pink because of carotenoids in the food they eat (shrimp, algae, and plankton) and if they’re not getting the right diet their color fades. It takes up to three years for baby flamingos to turn their gray feathers into a colorful coat. Hoaxes showing blue flamingos are regularly circulated. Don't be fooled.
This flamingo coloured tartan was designed by by Carol A.L. Martin to celebrate the 5000th tartan designed on Scotweb's tartan design site.
For an article about the rise and fall (and resurgence) of pink plastic lawn flamingos, including periods of lawn flamingo theft, click the real flamingos.