Los Cuatro Ojos

Gay flamingos adopt chick

Two gay flamingos have become proud foster parents after taking an abandoned chick under their wings.

Pink pair Carlos and Fernando were so desperate to have a family they started stealing eggs at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.

When one of the Greater Flamingo nests was abandoned, they were considered the number one choice to “adopt” the chick.

The unhatched egg was whisked off to an incubator where it was warmed up and monitored, reports Sky News.

After the chick was born, it was carefully placed in an old eggshell, which was taped up and returned to the gay couple’s empty nest.

The pair were soon seen ‘talking’ to the chick inside the egg and a little while later it hatched for a second time – to be greeted by its foster parents.

WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn said: “Fernando and Carlos are a same sex couple who have been known to steal other Flamingos’ eggs by chasing them off their nest because they wanted to rear them themselves.

“They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents.”

Carlos and Fernando, who have been together for about six years, can feed their chick without any female help – by producing milk in their throat.