Florence The Flamingo: A tale of vanity and foolishness

FLORENCE-A tale of vanity and pride-FLORENCE is a flamingo of exceptional beauty. She is also vain. She is deeply proud of her graceful neck, her long slender legs, her pink tipped feathers and elegantly curved beak. Florence spends a great deal of time admiring herself in the waters of the lake where she is careful to stand in the center of the other flamingos so they can all admire her. One summer the weather turns unusually hot. The waters of the lake start to dry up and the flamingo flock are worried. As the lake shrinks, they decide to leave and day by day, hundreds of flamingos depart. They urge Florence to join them. But Florence has discovered a new decoration on her body. The condensing water has created thousands of shining salt crystals which fasten themselves like a dazzling bracelet of diamonds around Florence’s ankles. She will not leave. Only when the crystals have formed a heavy ‘boot’ around each foot and she cannot move, does she realize how stupid she has been. She is stranded and alone. Fortunately, the older, wiser flamingos return to peck away the crusty chains and free her.The values in ‘Florence the Flamingo’Florence the Flamingo is clearly a story about the consequences of vanity, and what a false value it is. Florence is clearly more interested in how she looks than in her health and safety.Children today are bombarded from all sides by television and press advertising setting so-called standards for ‘looking good’, for being fashionable. Peer pressure adds to this and sometimes leads to bullying. It’s hard for children to resist such pressures and parents of even young children, find themselves responding to a constant demand for the newest and latest toys and fads.About the flamingo...Flamingos are found in many parts of the world including Africa and southern parts of Europe and Asia. There are also flamingos in the Caribbean and Galapagos islands and in many countries of South America.They are dramatic-looking birds due to their amazing plumage. Their special pink coloring comes from the Beta carotene in their diet of shrimps and algae. They eat by scooping up mud and silt in their spoon-shaped bills then filtering out any food through hairy strands in the throat.The soda referred to in this story is sodium carbonate, a salt found in high concentrations in the volcanic lakes of East Africa. Soda anklets can form on young birds during very hot spells when evaporation reduces water levels quickly.