This past weekend, from Feb. 28 to March 1, the National Aviary celebrated Flamingo Fest, a two-day special event dedicated to the tropical pink bird. The event originally started as a chance for aviary visitors to see live flamingos. It has since transformed into a weekend-long event that celebrates all things flamingos, including live feeding sessions, flamingos talks and educational activities.
Christa Gaus, a resident of Baldwin, is the aviary’s senior manager of animal programs and helps organize the event each year. While Flamingo Fest is one of the biggest events hosted by the aviary, Gaus and her team host events year-round dedicated to different animals. She believes offering different events allows each bird to get their moment to shine.
“Every species [has] a different story to tell,” Gaus said. “By breaking them down into different events, it gives us an opportunity to highlight that specific species and talk about its specific pressures.”
Flamingo Fest is often a crowd favorite, as the flamingos are one of the high profile species that reside at the aviary. Guests were dressed in pink attire, with some wearing flamingo t-shirts and earrings. The event created a space for all guests to see the brightly colored bird, while also getting a chance to learn more about the species. Gaus finds that the event is a great way for all visitors to get more involved with the flamingo species.
“It’s a way for us to be able to celebrate the species and get families, [and] really people of all ages, involved in the activities,” Gaus said. “We have an education center focused on flamingo education, focusing on the natural history of the species, what’s happening to those species and different things we can do to help protect them for future generations to continue to enjoy them.”
The aviary’s education center, the Discovery Zone Learning Center, is organized by Anais Haftman, a resident of Highland Park, who is an education program specialist at the aviary. Through this role, she helped coordinate the activities for Flamingo Fest.
“There’s a lot of research that goes into it from the crafts to the table activities. We try to make activities that are inclusive for all ages,” Gaus said.
The learning center was the hub for celebrating the spotlighted pink bird. The space featured a wide range of flamingo-based activities including a “What’s Your Flamingo Name?” activity, a flamingo themed craft, flamingo yoga stations and a selfie spot with pink boas, flamingo signs and inflatable flamingo pool floats. One table gave guests a chance to participate in a scavenger hunt around the aviary, with flamingo stickers and flamingo rubber ducks as prize options.
This space also took the opportunity to educate guests about flamingos’ features and lifestyle, including the potential harms affecting flamingo populations. One of the tables in the learning center taught guests about the harmful effects that lithium-ion batteries, which power most of our electronics, have on flamingos. Haftman believes it is important to teach visitors about flamingos’ struggles in addition to the entertaining activities.
“[Flamingo Fest] raises awareness to the general public of different things that people can do to help flamingos and hopefully encourage people to do different conservation work in their own homes,” Haftman said. “But of course we also want people to have fun so we try to have that happy balance of spreading conservation awareness but also making it super fun for everybody.”
Conservation is an important theme of Flamingo Fest. The festival holds different educational sessions that teach guests about the pressures that flamingos face. Gaus believes that including these teaching moments within a weekend of fun activities allows guests to connect more with the aviary’s goal of conservation.
“When you get people to have fun and you get people to connect to nature in any way, it inspires them to go out and take action, to make changes that are going to help these animals,” Guas said. “The biggest goal is getting [visitors] involved, getting them to love, because that’s the first step in taking action as they move forward.”
Alongside the family friendly activities and the conservation message, the highlight of the festival was the flamingos themselves. Residing in the wetland exhibit, the flamingo flock was the sight to see at the event. The flamingos stood in their pond and strutted around, stretched their wings and balanced on one leg, all for the excited guests watching. Their habitat was warm and humid, creating the necessary environment for the flamingos to enjoy themselves. At one point, an aviary worker stopped by the exhibit to teach visitors about flamingos feeding patterns, which was concluded by food distribution to the flamingos, allowing guests to watch as the birds ate.
Many visitors excitedly took pictures of the colorful birds, with crowds of people trying to get as close as possible to the pond. One attendee, Sharon Stemler from Rankin, is a frequent visitor of the aviary and is an annual visitor to Flamingo Fest. Stemler enjoys photographing the birds at the aviary, and particularly likes capturing the flamingos. She finds that Flamingo Fest is a great way to learn about specific birds in a fun environment.
“It’s good because you get to learn more about a specific bird,” Stemler said. “I like everything about the event — the decorations, the way the volunteers are so knowledgeable on [flamingos].”
Flamingo Fest allows each guest to enjoy seeing the flamingos in action while also learning valuable information about the species. The interactive festivities promise educational value and continued promotion of conservation for a bird that aviary visitors have come to love.