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Flamingo takes wrong turn migrating to Saudi and ends up in Siberia


Lost bird âfroze in the airâ and crash landed in front of a car in Kemerovo region. The bird got so cold while flying over Kemerovo region it fell down right in front of a car. Picture: Lyudmila Karabanova

The flamingo was on its annual migration, but lost the rest of its flock.

Experts believe it took a wring turn after flying from Kazakhstan to the Arabian peninsula, a distance of some 3,400 kilometres.

Instead the young bird got so cold it ‘froze in the air’ and crash landed on a road in the Novokuznetsky district of Kemerovo, some 1,300 km in the wrong direction.

Locals picked up the forlorn bird and warmed it in the car before giving it a temporary home beside a bathroom radiator. It is likely the bird took off around Tengiz Lake in Kazakhstan - and was heading for Saudi Arabia, but took a potentially catastrophic turn northeast instead of southwest. Pictures: Lyudmila Karabanova

Later the bird was moved to the young green rangers club in Novokuznetsk.

A club worker said: ‘Unfortunately, we are not capable of taking care of a flamingo for long. We have already contacted Kuznetsky Alatau nature reserve, and our unexpected guest will go to live there in a week.’

The good news is the flamingo is enjoying Siberia after the initial cold shock.

‘He is healthy, he has a great appetite and is proudly walking around our premises.’ Flamingo rescuer Lyudmila Karabanova

Rescuer Lyudmila Karabanova said: ‘Something went wrong with the migration.

'The long and warm autumn may be a reason. Siberia usually has only bears and bears - and now flamingos are flying here in winter’.

After flying around 1,300 km, the flamingo made its bumpy landing on the Kemerovo road.

Siberian expert Irina Vorontsova said flamingos can get muddled.

‘It happens that sometimes a bird is not strong enough, and it goes astray, flies in the wrong direction,’ she said.

Birds have been known to get frostbite and die.

This one had a lucky escape.



Benedikt may have made a true statement. Good thing this bird is okay now...
Grant Hibbs, Delta
23/11/2018 02:49
The bird appears quite 'human-habituated', and is not showing the effects of a harrowing flight.

An alternate scenario is that it's friendliness to people, even coming directly to them - as ducks & geese in the pond do - induced someone to load it up and take it home to Siberia. This is how exotic animals often end up in unexpected places: ill-advised acquisition, followed by buyers-remorse, culminating in casual/surreptitious-release.

"Oh wow - a flamingo flew to Siberia"! Maybe ... but there are other known ways.
21/11/2018 23:50
NEVER trust the -Navi-. Flamingo mothers also must teach this their young offspring...
Benedikt Morak, Moscow
21/11/2018 09:03
