Zoo flamingos lay first eggs

CHICAGO, July 23 (UPI) -- Giving the Chilean flamingos in Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo more plantings appears to have been followed by an outbreak of romance and 10 eggs.

Officials at the zoo say the eggs are the first laid by flamingos in the zoo for at least a half century and possibly the first ever. But they recognize there are no chicks yet.

"I'm not counting my flamingos until they're hatched,'' Megan Moss, the general curator, said this week.

The first hatchlings are expected to break out of their eggs in about two weeks.

The zoo has been keeping flamingos since the early 1950s. Because the earliest records were handwritten on index cards and no longer legible, officials are unsure whether there were any births in the first few years but know there have been none since the late 1950s.

A few years ago, the zoo acquired Chilean flamingos, which are hardier than the U.S. variety. They added dense planting to make the 48-bird flock seem larger, because flamingos like to live in big groups.

That apparently got them in the right frame of mind for egg creation.