Pinky’s Excellent Adventure Begins When She Spreads Wings

It was clipping time at the Duck Pond Road bird sanctuary, and Pinky the flamingo was planning her escape.

Forget having her feathers trimmed like all the other birds. Pinky wanted to see the world.

So on Sept. 26, when Gentle Mike the bird-keeper tried to catch her with his net, Pinky made her move.

“Hey girl,” cried Gentle Mike. “Come back, girl.”

But Pinky was in the air, her wings spread out in a splash of pink and black, her long, delicate body stretched into the wind.

Over the ponds and marshes she flew, over the trumpeter swans; past the red barns where the baby cranes are hatched, over Route 202, clogged with the cars of the leaf-peeping tourists from New York.

Pinky flew and flew. She didn’t stop until she saw a sheltered cove on the shores of the Connecticut River in East Hampton, home to a friendly family of swans.

Pinky moved in. She’s been living there ever since.

The Connecticut River is a busy place, with fancy excursion boats and long black barges and speedboats that zip up and down. It didn’t take long for folks on the river to spot their new pink neighbor.

And it wasn’t long before Mike Bean, the man in charge of the Litchfield bird sanctuary, heard of Pinky’s whereabouts.

Pinky likes Mike. He’s kind and friendly and feeds the birds turkey pellets. In the winter when it snows, he tucks them into a big warm tropical greenhouse. A few years ago, just for fun, he gave them red dye to make their feathers brighter. Everyone calls him Gentle Mike.

For a month now, Gentle Mike and his helper, Young Reese, have tried catching Pinky--chasing her in canoes and speedboats and even a 40-foot yacht. Once they got so close they almost touched her with their nets. Once Young Reese fell out of the boat.

Pinky preens her feathers and watches.

“She’s laughing at us,” says Gentle Mike.

She knows they want to force her into the deep water so the faster boats can chase her. She knows they don’t stand a chance. She’s growing healthy on her freshwater diet and her wings are growing strong. So Pinky plays a little game. She waits until the boats get close, then she soars into the air, circling over the cove a few times before landing right back on her favorite boulder.

One day Pinky flew close enough to the yacht to inspect the stuffed pink flamingo on the bow. Another day she flew so far the boats ran out of gas.

“Aaar . . . onk,” she gabbles at the photographers, who sail up the river, trying to take her picture. Gentle Mike says she’s laughing at them.

He worries about leaving Pinky on her own. After all, she was raised in captivity, growing up on a farm in Ohio, and moving to Connecticut when she was 10 years old.

Pinky is a Chilean flamingo, meaning she is smaller and much paler than her American cousins. She only weighs 3 pounds. But she’s tough. She can probably last the winter if the river doesn’t freeze. Mike is more worried about predators and about Pinky getting lost.

“I just want to see her come home safely,” he says.

The problem is how to catch her. He can’t use a net gun or a tranquilizer--Pinky is much too fragile. He can’t entice her with food--she’s got plenty. He can’t lure her with a flock of plastic flamingos--she’s too smart.

Young Reese suggests trying out his scuba gear and sneaking up underneath her in the water. Gentle Mike is not so sure.

Maybe, he says, the answer is to startle her with big flashlights in the middle of the night. Maybe they just have to give up.

Pinky’s isn’t worried. She has a warm cove with shallow water and plenty of food. The swans are friendly. There’s a pretty snowy egret who sometimes come to visit.

Pinky the runaway flamingo is having the time of her life.