![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762854847_857_grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"Micka\u00ebl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/f959b330-bfd5-11f0-8bee-9be167c22f3b.jpg.webp.webp\")
Micka\u00ebl Belliot<\/p>\nMicka\u00ebl Belliot<\/p>\n
Frankie was first photographed in northern France on 9 November, a week after she escaped<\/p>\n
A juvenile flamingo which escaped from a wildlife sanctuary more than a week ago is thought to be doing “extremely well” in the wild, keepers have said.<\/p>\n
On 2 November Frankie escaped from Paradise Park Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a> in Hayle, Cornwall, despite her feathers being clipped on one wing to prevent her from reaching full flight.<\/p>\n The escape prompted a search<\/a> before the wading bird was eventually spotted in northern France<\/a> – where she is thought to have settled.<\/p>\n David Woolcock, curator at the park, said staff were “devastated” when Frankie escaped but he felt relieved she had “shown the resilience and skills” to aid her as a wild flamingo.<\/p>\n Mr Woolcock said there were “numerous issues” with the idea of bringing Frankie back to the park, including avian influenza. <\/p>\n “If she were to be caught in France she would then need to be housed at a French institution to be health screened as part of the UK importation process,” he said.<\/p>\n “But it is unlikely that [anyone] would agree to hold Frankie as she has been mixing with wild birds and may have been in contact with avian influenza infected birds.<\/p>\n “Avian influenza continues to be a major threat to wild birds and we hope that Frankie remains safe and healthy.”<\/p>\n Staff at the park in Hayle said they were devastated after Frankie’s disappearance<\/p>\n Mr Woolcock said there had been reports of “similar situations” where flamingos had lived “for many years and thrived”, including in winter.<\/p>\n Frankie had her feathers clipped on one wing, a method used to prevent birds from reaching full flight, but Mr Woolcock said it usually inhibited the ability to take off, not necessarily the ability to fly once airborne.<\/p>\n Keepers said Frankie, who hatched in July, had become independent of her parents and was showing signs of flapping her wings while at the park.<\/p>\n From Cornwall to France<\/p>\n Mr Woolcock said: “We suspect that it was in just such an exercise period that Frankie was caught by a gust of wind which made her airborne. <\/p>\n “Then she was on her way.”<\/p>\n Mr Woolcock said flamingos were “quite hardy creatures” and were known to fly hundreds of miles to cross continents. <\/p>\n He said the evidence park staff had seen of Frankie in France “shows a well-adjusted, well-fed bird, doing extremely well”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Micka\u00ebl Belliot Frankie was first photographed in northern France on 9 November, a week after she escaped A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-259492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Paradise](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/5e5795e0-be1e-11f0-96ab-8118be20a827.jpg.webp.webp\")
Paradise Park<\/p>\n