Nature Notes

The Flamingo

D. L. Fox

With apologies to Lewis Carroll: "A-sitting on a Gate"

1.

I'll tell thee everything I can;

Ther's little to relate

I sas a pale falmingo standing

Just beyond a gate.

"Whence come you, noble bird," I asked,

And how is it you live?

The creature merely stared at me,

Twas all she had to give

2.

She seemed to say, "We live in swamps,

Hot river-mouths and lakes,

And shores, where foes are few, and food

(for all who'll pay the stakes)

is plentiful and varied, and,

Thought salty and quite muddy

And mixed with copecoda and sand,

Keeps our complexions ruddy.