Thirteen years after his escape from the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo (BAMZ), a brilliant pink flamingo has suddenly become a talking point for many locals.

The elegant bird has begun roving from his Spittal Pond home and has frequented Warwick Pond and Shelly Bay, sparking discussion on almost all the Island's talk shows.

BAMZ curator Jack Ward said the bird escaped from the Flatts facility with his partner during Hurricane Emily in 1987 and set up home at Spittal Pond.

He noted that the bird's partner recently died and suggested that the loss may have sparked his recent roving behaviour.

According to Dr. Ward, the flamingo is able to live and feed quite easily in the Bermuda wild. "In the ponds there are a large number of micro invertebrates on which flamingos can feed,'' he said.

"They are much the same as whales and have sieve type mouths which they use to feed on plankton.'' If the flamingo had not escaped from the Aquarium, he might have been one of the 24 birds taken to Anegada in the British Virgin Islands in 1992 as part of an effort to repopulate the salt marsh flamingos who had disappeared there.