Flamingo watchers always in the pink

Long-legged birds add beauty to island off Venezuelan coast

By RACHEL BECK Associated Press writer March 23, 2003

WASHINGTON SLAGBAAI NATIONAL PARK, Bonaire - It took two hours of driving along the bumpiest road I have ever traveled until they came into view.

The drive through this rugged terrain suddenly became worth it.

A sea of bright-pink flamingos appeared before my eyes, in shades of bubble gum and set against a serene backdrop of blue waters and barren mountains. Gorgeous.

Ask most people who visit Bonaire about its huge flamingo population, and they will likely remind you that this tiny Dutch Caribbean island just off the coast of Venezuela is known for its amazing underwater life.

True, Bonaire is a divers' paradise, but it's often overlooked as a popular destination for flamingo watchers, too.

It should be more obvious. Flamingo Airport is the main transportation hub, and T-shirts and trinkets for sale all over the downtown area bear flamingo designs.

But it takes some driving around the island for the live flamingos, sometimes huddled in groups of hundreds, to really come into view.

That's what got me hooked. I had been to Bonaire a year ago, and noticed the beauty of the flamingos from afar during a quick ride around its southern end.

This trip, I yearned to learn more about these birds.

So I set out one morning with Gijs van Hoorn, an environmental officer on the island who counts the number of flamingos on Bonaire each month to gauge how they are faring.

On average, there are 3,000 to 7,000 flamingos in Bonaire at one time. That fluctuates because they often fly to Venezuela - even for the day - if food on Bonaire becomes scarce.

Bonaire is one of a few places in the world where flamingos actually breed. They like the temperate climate - it always seems to be around 80 degrees - and the lack of predators around to bother them.

There are two spots where the flamingos tend to congregate on the island, which spans 116 square miles. To the south, they flock to the Pekelmeer Sanctuary, where they frolic in the massive, protected salt ponds.

On the northern end, they are found in pockets of desolate Washington Slagbaai National Park. That's where we headed to count the flamingos.

Armed with binoculars, van Hoorn has more than a dozen watch-points set along the 21 miles of unpaved, mountainous trails that run through the national park. At each, he stops his rickety truck and climbs down through trees and brush to get a better view.

The counting begins.

With a naked eye, we couldn't see anything at the first stop but a slight hint of pink in the distance. He counted more than 70 birds with his binoculars.

Moving on, we saw a few here and there. Some were close; most were far away.

The rocky ride was getting harder to take. There wasn't any flat road to drive on.

I was gripping my seat for balance, hoping that would prevent me from being thrust through the windshield.

Then that sea of color appeared as we approached an area called Salina Slagbaai. Dots of pink popped out of the blue waters as we neared.

We stood far enough away that we wouldn't scare them. Flamingos are shy and tend to flee when humans come too near.

Their long necks dipped below the water to grab food. Then suddenly, they extended their lean, long legs, making it appear that they were walking on water.

This is what I had come for.

We counted 117 in that spot alone. But it was time to move on. We had more counting to do.

Hundreds were spotted at Salina Goto, but mostly from afar. At one point, we stood on a mountaintop and looked down. Huge patches of pink blanketed the water.

We counted 619 flamingos that day during our trip around the national park. Others counting on the island's southern end found 4,225 more.

As we drove home along the bumpy road, it didn't seem to matter anymore that I was being tossed all around.

I had been blinded by the pink light.