For the wings when open were of a
glorious crimson colour, and the bird was to me the most angel-like
creature on earth.
What were these wonderful birds? I asked of my brothers, but they
could not tell me. They said they had never seen birds like them
before, and later I found that the flamingo was not known in our
neighbourhood as the water-courses were not large enough for it, but
that it could be seen in flocks at a lake less than a day's journey
from our home.
It was not for several years that I had an opportunity of seeing the
bird again; later I have seen it scores and hundreds of times, at rest
or flying, at all times of the day and in all states of the
atmosphere, in all its most beautiful aspects, as when at sunset or in
the early morning it stands motionless in the still water with its
clear image reflected below; or when seen flying in flocks--seen from
some high bank beneath one--moving low over the blue water in a long
crimson line or half moon, the birds at equal distances apart, their
wing-tips all but touching; but the delight in these spectacles has
never equalled in degree that which I experienced on this occasion
when I was six years old.
The next little bird adventure to be told exhibits me more in the
character of an innocent and exceedingly credulous baby of three than
of a field naturalist of six with a considerable experience of wild
birds.
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