flamingos 26 March 2008
Apparently there are flamingos at Kensington’s Roof Gardens here in London. (I have not been yet but they sound great, both birds and gardens). Vicious rumours abound that the exotic birds are no more but no, they live on. Two of them, Bill and Ben, are the most famous and will be part of the venue’s 70th birthday celebrations this year. Well, I think the feathered lads will just knock about as usual – they’re not much into partying as we know it, the flamingos, they just spend their time being beautiful and birdy. The closest I have come to masses of them was on a visit to Tanzania. I was there in my capacity as Patron of World Vision Ireland, with co-patron, actress and lovely lady extraordinaire Victoria Smurfit (Roisin in Trial and Retribution). We visited projects in the dusty naval of the country, which was truly amazing and worth a blog of it’s own (fear not) – also there is probably still a copy of an article I wrote for an Irish magazine on our return on the World Vision Ireland website that you might like to look up. Anyhow, because of adverse weather we found ourselves back in the north of the country with a few days to spare before leaving, so we took ourselves off to the Ngorogoro wildlife crater and went down into it to see the critters, which included flocks of flamingos living by a natural lake. They were very beautiful indeed but the pong was historic – I think it was the fishlife/plankton stuff they feed on. Various hyenas tried their luck running in and out of the flock hoping to catch a bird while we looked on but they weren’t in luck on the day. Bill and Ben on the Kensington Roof feed on special pellets which contain the carotenoid pigment canthaxantin, essential for birds with pink plumage, I hear, so now you know too. I’d say the smell is minimal there.
