MIAMI — A single American flamingo standing in the shallow end of a lagoon at Zoo Miami has, sources confirmed Wednesday, an entirely accurate and unshakable understanding of exactly how hot it looks right now.
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The flamingo, a five-year-old female identified by staff as Number 47, was observed for approximately three hours by this reporter, during which time she preened, posed, adjusted, and repositioned herself in the exact center of the lagoon with what one zookeeper described as “just a real, unmistakable sense of ownership.”
“She knows,” said the habitat’s longtime flamingo keeper, a 42-year-old avian husbandry specialist, watching from the fence. “She fully knows. Look at her. She is fully aware. Do not tell me that bird does not know.”
The flamingo, as of press time, was standing on one leg, neck curved into a perfect S, feathers vividly pink, catching the light from a low angle that she had, sources confirmed, positioned herself into deliberately.
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“She waits for the light,” the keeper said. “Every afternoon around three. She moves to that specific spot. She adjusts. And then she just, like, stays there. Other flamingos come near her. She moves them off. She wants that spot. She needs that spot. She is aware, on some level, of what that light does for her.”
The flamingo has been observed, on separate occasions, doing the following:
Ignoring the other twenty-two flamingos in her habitat.
Turning her back on a group of children who were, per the keeper, “not that impressed.”
Standing motionless for eleven consecutive minutes in front of a Japanese tourist who had a real camera with a real lens.
Refusing to eat brine shrimp from the same bowl as the second-most-attractive flamingo, a four-year-old female identified as Number 31.
Number 31, sources confirmed, is aware of the hierarchy and has accepted it.
“She’s second best,” the keeper said. “She knows she’s second best. Number 47 knows she’s first best. They have an arrangement.“
Zookeepers have, over the past year, begun informally referring to Number 47 as The Queen. She is not, they clarified, actually the flock’s dominant bird by any biological measure. The dominant bird is a much larger male in the back of the enclosure who does not care what anyone thinks. Number 47’s dominance is, they said, purely aesthetic.
“It’s a soft power thing,” she said. “She’s the hot one. That’s a different position. That’s a completely different chain of command.”
The flamingo, when this reporter approached the fence for a closer look, briefly turned her head, made direct and unbothered eye contact for approximately four seconds, and then turned back to the light.
She was not, sources confirmed, going to give a comment.
She was not, sources confirmed, going to give a smile.
She was, sources confirmed, going to continue standing there, in her light, on her leg, and it would be up to this reporter to figure out how to accurately describe her, in words, without the descriptions doing full justice to what she was pulling off in real time.
Which, at press time, they did not.
She knew that too.