decade have produced offspring -- the first for the colony since the birds were hunted into extinction in the 1950s.

Five pink flamingos have hatched in a remote salt pond on Anegada, a remote island of 200 people chosen for the project out of the 60 islands, islets and cays that make up the colony, officials said yesterday.

"It took nearly three hours to get close enough to document the nesting chicks and eggs,'' said Mr. James Conyers, the project's director, on loan from Bermuda's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Parks.

In a statement yesterday, Conyers said he had to crawl through a two-foot-deep salt pond to find the chicks.

"They are the cutest little things, very soft pink handfuls with fattish legs, for flamingos, and big bulgy knees,'' Nicholas Drayton, director of the National Parks Trust, told the Associated Press.

The fledglings are the first success for a project started in 1986 to reintroduce the birds. They were hunted to extinction, apparently for their feathers, Drayton said.

A colony of 20 birds was donated by the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo.

While some of the birds built nests last year, none laid any eggs.

The first two chicks were spotted May 23, the other three on June 4 and 5, Drayton said.

He stressed the project would not be successful unless people allow the fledglings the peace to grow to maturity and reproduce. That would take three to five years, Drayton said.

The birds' nest in the salt pond appeared to be safe from people. However, a charter plane that carries visitors on a tour of the island flies at a low altitude that disturbs them.

The islands are a meeting point for flamingos migrating between North and South America. Two strange flamingos recently joined the Anegada flock.

"BVI may be a very important gene pool for migratory flamingos,'' Drayton said.