But wait — it gets better!  Yes, I know what you’re thinking — “Better than that — REALLY???  I can’t believe it, you’ve gotta be pulling my leg!”  Nope, absolutely not — there really is even more to this already happy story.  What’s that?  “Enlighten me,” you say?  Alrighty — keep reading and I’ll tell you all about it.

So although Allyn loved that the flock came to visit her, she had to depart for work quite early in the morning — she saw them briefly and did the Dance of Joy (figuratively speaking, anyway, I assume — or perhaps she really did get out there and do the happy dance with the flock…  hmmm, maybe we need to add a Flamingo-Cam to our flocking setup so we can see the flockee’s reaction firsthand…), but by the time she got home we had had to pick them up and move them on to other yards of other soon-to-be happy people.  So Barry, realizing Allyn’s disappointment at not having had any real quality time with the birds, arranged to have us bring them back on Saturday night — yes, all of them, the whole megaflock!  (Wow, our first repeat megaflocking, AND the first birthday party our birds have attended — this flocking adventure has definitely earned a place in the anals of our flocking history!)  When asked how Allyn liked her second megaflocking, Barry reported that she LOVED it — she spied the flock as they returned home from dinner and was beside herself with excitement that her flock had come back!  And then she got to enjoy them, as she hadn’t been able to do during the week.  We really love a happy ending!

Want to see the flamingos’ birthday gathering for Allyn?  I got plenty of pictures of this shindig — it was quite festive, made even more so by the magnificent display of Halloween decorations in the yard.  (The flocking experience was particularly Edgar Allan Poe-ish, actually — the decorations were quite spooky to begin with, but combined with the mild thunder and lightning we were experiencing the evening of the first flocking…  Well, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to have found Poe’s Raven, quothing (yes, I know that isn’t really a word), “Nevermore”…)  So, now that the scene has been set for you, please join the party below — it’s the next best thing to having been there!

(Although…  they might have seen us, guys…  just maybe…  How could they possibly not have seen any of us???  No, of course they didn’t see us — we were completely invisible!  Yeah, that’s it — invisible…)

Anyway, kudos for this evening’s flocking op go out to Debbie (The Flockin’ Pink Tornado!), Julie, Kevin, Krystle, and Shelby (listed in alphabetical order — everyone was equally AWESOME!!!)  Job well done, y’all!

No, that was NOT Bill Haley and the Comets — we do, however, thank them profusely for providing us with a song that we could adapt so easily into a flamingo wrangler theme song of sorts.   OK, so maybe we won’t actually be flocking at all hours — but we’re back in the flocking swing of things, and we’re approaching our adventures with that level of enthusiasm!  We’ve been back at it for a couple of days (make that nights) now, and in many ways it’s like we never stopped.  Sneaking through the dark, using stealthy maneuvers we thought we’d probably forgotten over the summer…  Yep, we’ve still got it!  The only thing we’re noting (those of us on the upper end of the age range, anyway ) is that we are breathless from more than the excitement of the flocking experience after we have placed the flock and run like the wind to escape detection.  Speaking for myself (though I suspect that some of my fellow wranglers may agree), this flamingo wrangler has gotten a bit out of shape since last flocking season — I don’t recall wishing for an oxygen tank after making a run for it last year…  Ah, well — that should straighten itself out in short order.  Flocking is actually very good exercise (as evidenced by the aforementioned running like the wind) and I (or we — if any of you other, shall we say, more mature wranglers would like to ‘fess up to being in similar straits ) should be back in good shape before I (we?) know it!

So, we’ve been running our usual flocking operations and getting back in the groove of things quite easily.  In the midst of the usual, though, we did a flocking last night that was somewhat out of the ordinary — in that we didn’t have to worry about being noticed, and so we were able to do some things we don’t normally have the luxury of doing.  We were commissioned to do a flocking at the Board of Education offices, which we carried out with great glee.  Knowing that we would only be seen by the security cameras (and if we’d known where the cameras were, we would have been mugging for them with a big ol’ grin ) we took our time to place the flock just so, and we also were uncharacteristically able to document the flocking with photos taken right then and there, and with our wranglers posing with the flock.  Here, have a look — we were quite proud of ourselves!

There was a reasonable amount of light by the door of the building, but we used the car's headlights to spotlight the flock a bit better. I particularly like the shadows that were thrown on the building -- very ominous looking (though of course our birds wouldn't hurt a fly...)

Pictured here giving the flock a little last minute attention are Carol, a.k.a. "Momma Flocker", and Debbie, a.k.a. "The Flockin' Pink Tornado". Yours truly, a.k.a. (depending on the moment) "The Flockin' Blogger/Photographer", or more recently, "The Flamingo Whisperer" is behind the camera. (Now really, where else would I be???)

Gotcha!!!

Yes, that’s right — the legendary PINK FLAMINGOS have returned to St. Michaels!

I have to tell you, it’s been really shocking edifying to realize the notoriety recognition and acclaim we obviously achieved with our flocking adventures last year.  As I said, the flock has been in front of the house for about a week now, and I’ve been rather slow in getting our sign made up and out in the yard with them.  (You know, so people would realize they’re out there for an actual reason and that I’m not just some crazy woman with a complete and utter flamingo fixation – although in the course of last year’s goings on, that is pretty much what  I and my compadres have become, and we say there’s nothing at all wrong with that! )  Anyway, so the flamingos have been hanging out in the yard for the past week, with absolutely no indication of what they’re all about out there.  I’ve been kicking myself all week for not finding the time to put the sign together — but even in the midst of my said fairly constant kicking of self, I kept hearing, either directly or second- or third-hand, that people were seeing our birds and apparently the sign was not as necessary as I thought (though I do feel ever so much better now, since I finally got it finished and out with the flock today).  Yes, people have been passing the house all week, seeing the flock out there, and knowing exactly what’s coming down the pike — it’s been really heartwarming to hear the excitement and anticipation that’s building amongst the general populace…  I was enormously amused, though, to hear last Monday afternoon that a certain gentleman was on his way home from work that day (the first weekday they were out there), saw the flock and immediately grabbed his cell phone to call and order his anti-flocking insurance policy — he said he could hardly dial, he was so shaken up.  (Now, I’m sure he very responsibly pulled to the shoulder of the road before making this call.  However, if he was so flustered that he neglected to do so, he was still operating within the law – this was, after all, last Monday, before the hands-free law went into effect…)  I’m torn — I’m not sure whether to be thrilled that the recognition of the flock was that distinct and immediate, or distressed that driving by my house struck such fear in this gentleman’s heart.  Hmmm…  I think I’ll just stick with enormously amused, with maybe a side order of thrilled — yeah, I’ll go with that.

So, good people, I’ll close with this for today – get very excited!!!  The flock is BAAA-AAACK, and they’re looking forward to making the rounds – they can’t wait to go back and visit all of the wonderful friends they made last year, and they want to find even more new friends!  That means YOU!

A belated HAPPY NEW YEAR to anyone who may still be lurking about, waiting with bated breath for more, more, more news and general levity from the flamingo flocking front.  (I hope you haven’t literally been holding your breath the entire time — it’s been longer than I ever intended since the last blog entry, and you’ve probably turned a lovely shade of blue-verging-on-purple by now…)

Time has just flown by since the middle of December — the flock was grounded by The Blizzard of 2009 (BRRRR!!!!) which hit town on Friday, December 18, dropping quite the load of the white stuff on us.  By the time we were able to dig out from that, the holidays were upon us and the flamingos continued on their blizzard-induced flocking break to celebrate!  They are quite the multi-cultural flock, BTW – they gave equal time in their celebration to Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa!  While the birds did visit a few homes in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, we’ve most recently been sidelined by bitter cold and high winds — it would be bad all the way around to have frozen-solid flamingos blowing around, and possibly taking a flamingo wrangler or two with them as they sail through the windblown frozen tundra our home has become…

So we’re flocking as we’re able to right now, and with mixed success I might add.  A few of our wranglers bundled up and braved the frigid conditions last night — after an admirable blitz in the mind-numbing cold which spread flocks once again throughout our flamingo-deprived community, we ended up having to go back out to retrieve a flock that inadvertently landed in the wrong yard, due to excessive dark conditions combined with very obscure (or nonexistent???) house numbering.  Unfortunately, after finding the right home we still had to admit temporary defeat and abort placement of that particular flock for the night, as the ground was frozen so hard that we couldn’t even get the birds to penetrate the surface!  We’ll go back, hoping for warmer temperatures and at least slightly thawed ground in that yard (otherwise, maybe a jackhammer might help us — though it would make us horribly conspicuous, as well as being generally harmful to our birds  – what was I thinking…)

At any rate, we’ll soldier on, doing our best to spread flamingo love to our community in the face of adverse weather conditions — I’ll continue reporting on our adventures, as well as catching you up on past happenings.

Well, I must head off to my day job — you all keep warm out there, and I’ll be back to you soon!

And now, without further ado, I present The Pink Plastic Flamingo: The Ambassador of the American Lawn.

For the uninformed, their assignment last night was to flock a home that is set back from the road and behind a row of trees.  Typically in a situation like this, we leave the flock out at the road — stealthy as we are, there is generally too great a risk of detection, as well as a limited route of escape if we are seen, to approach the house with the flock.  Connor and Bailey, though, scoffed at these obstacles and flocked the house — I mean, really FLOCKED THE HOUSE!  Eight of the birds were flocked on the grass right in front of the house (and you must envision that the yard is very well lit by several floodlights, and the house has several large windows looking directly out on the flocked area).  But it gets even better — the remaining 2 birds were left in planters on the front porch right by the front door!  (I wish I’d had a camera with me — this really had to be seen to be fully appreciated, but hopefully my description has created enough of a mental picture for you to share in our incredulity!)

We did speak with the family this evening when we picked up the flock.  They had been home at the time of the flocking — they never noticed a thing, the dogs never barked, NO ONE had the slightest idea that anything out of the ordinary was occurring in their yard…

So, let’s recap.  Our wranglers got in the long driveway, placed most of the flock in an extremely well lit spot in full view of anyone in the house who might have glanced out, got up onto the front porch to place 2 more birds, and got back out to the road, completely escaping the notice of both human and canine occupants of the home.  Inconceivable!

While every one of our flamingo wranglers has great talent and is extremely skillful in carrying out their wrangling duties, we felt the need to extend a special commendation to Connor and Bailey for this job particularly well done.  We bow in profound tribute to your flamingo wrangling prowess!

We’ve had confirmation from them this morning that they had absolutely no idea whatsoever that there were half a dozen flamingo wranglers in their yard last night megaflocking them — amazing!

The flock doesn’t look adversely affected by last night’s bad weather, and the birds actually look pretty happy after being out in the overnight downpour (thankfully, the ice turned to rain…) — I guess this proves that flamingos and ducks share the “We love to play in puddles!” gene.   And since, generally speaking, humans do NOT share the aforementioned gene (well, except for select kids — I’m sure we’ve all known some of those ), we’ll forgive the Bennetts for not being out in their rain-sodden lawn, doing the Dance of Joy to celebrate the visit of their megaflock, when I did my drive-by photo shoot this morning.

We do understand, though, that they were completely thrilled — so much so, that they’re compiling a list of those near and dear to them, all of whom they know would be equally pleased to have the flock come to visit.  Keep an eye out — the flock may be headed your way next!