Bijzondere verhoudingen bij flamingo’s

About ten years ago a relation between two male flamingos in Rotterdam Zoo became front-page news all over Europe. The ‘gay’ birds showed their ability to breed an adopted egg and to raise the chicken to maturity. Both in Rotterdam Zoo and elsewhere flamingos develop all kinds of relationships other than the normal malefemale-combination: Not only relations between two males, but also trios between two males and one female or two females and one male occur; and relations between two females cannot be ruled out. This may explain the presence of two eggs in a small minority of flamingo nests in breeding colonies, although flamingo females never produce more than one egg. Re-laying is possible after the first egg got lost. Flamingos are less faithful towards their partners than was assumed in the past. Adultery is being observed regularly and pair-bonds seldom last more than one breeding season. The male pair in Rotterdam Zoo was broken apart with the transfer of one of the partners to another zoo; the male staying behind soon found a new female partner. One could wonder whether this male pair really was a gay couple or was only an occasional combination. In de Westeuropean flamingo breeding colony in the Zwillbrocker Venn (Germany) a male pair has been observed since 1994. During all the years since the birds have shown their incapability to satisfy their sexual impulse to copulate. Until the spring of 2004. On several occasions it was observed that both male birds in a short space of time changed the male and female roles several times and performed several successive normal looking copulations with each other.