Bahamas: Marching Flamingos
[01:03:37:14] - IN
[01:03:50:00] – Narration
This is Lexion. He gave up his office job in Jamaica for work in a tropical paradise.
[01:04:25:00]
Here in the Bahamas he trains snakes, parrots, monkeys and the world-famous marching flamingos.
[01:04:34:00]
The first ever Flamingo show was held here in 1957, and the flamingos have been enthralling visitors ever since.
[01:04:47:00]
Their perfectly synchronized movements are a mystery, even to the trainers themselves.
[01:04:53:10] - Interview No. 1
These flamingos were first trained back in the early 1940s, by a gentleman whose name is Hedley Edwards, who’s no longer alive. He came from Jamaica to the Bahamas, he settled here, and he trained these birds and nobody knows how he trained them. Birds are beautiful, but not very bright, they’re not very clever. I mean if you have an animal with intelligence like a monkey, you can train that to do anything quite easily, because it’s a smart animal, but flamingos are not so smart. So how he did it remains a mystery.
[01:05:43:10] - Interview No.2
What we do, I mean we simply carry on with his trained birds, every now and then, we lose one, one will die; then we put a new one in, and the new one follows all the old ones, so the thing is perpetuating itself.
[01:06:04:10] - Narration
In the 1950’s flamingos were becoming increasingly rare in the Bahamas. The government brought hundreds of flamingoes to this sanctuary to breed.. and they’ve been here ever since.
[01:06:22:40] - Interview No. 3 - Lexion
They came in the garden, we got them about three weeks old, and after three months we clip their wings, and I feed them every day. They know me and I know them. They see me, I open my mouth, they know exactly what I mean.
[01:06:49:40] – Narration
Following in Hedley Edwards’ footsteps, Lexion spends every day training the flamingos for their weekly performance.
[01:06:59:00]
The show always goes down well, leaving the audience amazed and a little unnerved!
[01:07:05:40] - Interview No.4 - Spectator
For me the way they respond to the command, was pretty interesting, they’re well trained and just from the final command when he said “dismissed” they knew the command and they followed through. Pretty exciting birds
[01:07:22:17] - Interview No.5 – Spectator 2
I thought it was fantastic, If he can just find a way to train women the way he trained the pink flamingos that would be great.
[01:07:29:00] - Narration
The zoo now has over 300 animals but the flamingos remain the star attraction.