SF Zoo Welcomes Four New Baby Flamingos

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Four new baby flamingos have been getting used to their new home at the San Francisco Zoo, the first flamingo chicks to hatch there in four years.

The little bundles of fluffy white feathers range in age from four weeks old to five days old. And there are two more siblings about to hatch, said flamingo keeper Tom Turowski, the man tasked with keeping the mud just so in a foggy climate that tends to put a chill on nest building.

"I keep the mud flat nice and muddy and the right texture, but they have to actually sit in the mud and then start building a funnel-shaped nest that, when it's completed, will be about 18 inches high," he said.

If the fog rolls in, the flamingos may not sit in the mud long enough to finish the nest, at least not quickly.

"Many summers are so foggy, they'll get a rather shallow nest going and then they'll kind of wander away when the fog rolls in. Then they might build a little bit, then they'll wander away some more. That goes on for months."

The nest has to be at least six inches high for the birds to lay an egg.

The next addition to the zoo's popular pink flamingo exhibit could arrive as early as Sunday.