Twycross Zoo: There's a new chick in town

• Footage from Twycross Zoo

Twycross Zoo is celebrating the new year by announcing the successful birth of a Chilean flamingo.

As a near threatened species, with a difficult breeding process, it's the first time in almost 30 years that the zoo has welcomed a new chick.

The baby was born in September 2021 and has been carefully cared for bv the Twycross team, who say they will be picking out a name soon after recently discovering the bird is a female.

Like humans, flamingos share the parental responsibility for their offspring, with both the male and female taking turns to care for the chick.

The bird experts at Twycross say the fluffy new addition to the zoo doesn't look bright pink yet, as this will develop through her adult life because of pigments consumed in her diet.

Twycross says the chick is another success for the many breeding programmes which aim to preserve endangered species.

Did you know...

The collective noun to describe a group of flamingos is “flamboyance". Other collective nouns for flamingos include "stand", "colony" or "pat".