BS: bring on the flamingos

Subject: Hurricane Idalia brings flamingos
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 01:21 PM

If you read USA Today, you have seen this story.
Hurricane Idalia is the culprit:
she passed over the Yucatan peninsula, where many flamingos live,
and carried some of the birds to:
Florida
South Carolina
North Carolina
Virginia
Tennessee
even Ohio

Florida doesn't have that many LIVE flamingos, the article says,
and the birders there are hoping they will stick around.
Did you know that a group of them is called
a flamboyance of flamingos?
It was news to me.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 02:28 PM

When my ex accused me of acting like a flamingo, I had to put my foot down.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 04:42 PM

The part of my brain that recalls how to make blue clickies
having switched itself off somehow,
I can't make a link to the article in USA Today.

The title is
Flamingo fallout: Iconic pink birds showing up all over the East Coast after Idalia


and I left out Texas for flamingo sightings
(Bolivar Peninsula, according to the article)

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 04:46 PM

Here you go..

Flamingos

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 04:47 PM

(I have a link to USA Today, and I used Max's blueclicky)

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 10:53 AM

Flamingos are white but do turn pink based on the pH of the water.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 12:22 PM

"Flamingos are white but do turn pink based on the pH of the water."

More abject nonsense.

Brittanica states

"The bright pink color of flamingos comes from beta-carotene, a red-orange pigment that’s found in high amounts within the algae, brine fly larvae, and brine shrimp that flamingos eat in their wetland environment. In the digestive system, enzymes break down carotenoids into pigments that are absorbed by fats in the liver and deposited, for flamingos, in the feathers and skin. To actually color those external attributes, carotenoids must be ingested in very large amounts. Because the flamingo diet is nearly exclusively carotenoid-filled delicacies, the birds have no problem coloring themselves."

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Sep 23 - 02:31 PM

I knew a girl who lived off the land in Maui and ate so many free mangos that she turned orange from carotenoids.

Thanks to my good friend Raggytash for the more complete answer.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 10:54 AM

You should be thanking him for his correct answer, in contrast to your blatantly incorrect assertion. Yet another example of your inability to check before you post, and of your inability to admit that you got something wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 11:51 AM

Don't be so hard on Don in this case, Steve. I once heard of a zoo whose flamingos turned white; by the time the story got to me, the strongly-alkaline nature of the lake they'd normally inhabit was said to be the cause of their pinkness in the wild. Perhaps someone in the editorial chain remembered seeing phenolphthalein used as an indicator of alkalinity in school chemistry lessons, and jumped to an unwarranted conclusion from a standing start. Possibly that person was me.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 06:33 PM

Yes and no. Yes brine is alkaline but I couldn't remember what the dietary component was at the time of the post so I left it out. My source was only a nature show on TV.

Since carrots come in purple, yellow and orange I wonder if great quantities of carotene could pass on different colors to people.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 06:44 PM

"Yes brine is alkaline..."

Ye gods, here we go again. Brine is a solution of salt in water, and, no matter how concentrated the solution, the pH is 7. In other words, neutral. Not alkaline. The only way that a salt solution can stray from neutral pH is when there are impurities in the solution. Yet another example of this crazy man's unchecked and inaccurate assertions making it on to the poor old Mudcat pages.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Stanron
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 07:11 PM

A method for treating alkaline brines

https://patents.google.com/patent/AU2014344808A1/en

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 03:35 AM

As I said, a salt solution can be alkaline only if contaminated. "Brine is alkaline" unqualified is a sweeping and highly misleading assertion.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 04:46 AM

Brine, brine's alkaline,
Makes 'em pinky like a coraline…

Sorry

Dublin Zoo staff feed the flamingos… something or other, can't remember what, to keep them pink.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 06:59 AM

Flamingos are pink when they ingest the beta-carotene in their natural food. They can become less pink after breeding or in zoos. The old-fashioned way of keeping them pink is to feed them with foods rich in beta-carotenes. These days, zoos might include an artificial additive to their food. One thing's for sure: the pH of the lake has nothing to do with the pink colouration. It's true that flamingos can tolerate water with a higher pH value than many other creatures can, but the alkaline condition of their habitat is caused by things like dissolved carbonates, not by dissolved salt. Which is what brine is.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the ridiculus
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 08:26 AM

Bruhahaha

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 10:28 AM

Comment is free but facts are sacred, old chap.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 04:26 PM

Yet another example of this crazy man's unchecked and inaccurate assertions making it on to the poor old Mudcat pages.

I think the phrase that triggered that conceit was "based on the pH"

The food of flamingos &/or abundance therewith would certainly depend on the pH. And a neutral pH is still a pH.

As ever - once you start to get pedantic, do please engage brain. Pedantry begets pedantry.

Cue snarky narcissistry.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 05:21 PM

You simply don't know what you're talking about, I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Sep 23 - 09:35 AM

North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Ohio . . .
the flamingos that got carried that far north
may have to fly south for the winter
(FLorida or Texas?)

Subject: RE: BS: bring on the flamingos
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 23 - 12:21 PM

They taste a bit salty and gamey but people look ridiculous when they eat a flamingo drumstick. ;^/