"Fiona's Flamingos"/20"x20"/latex &ink on canvas/ $365

"Fiona grew up in the botanical gardens in South Florida near the everglades. Her home sits on stilts two hundred feet above shallow wetland. It is situated within a wildlife sanctuary with hundreds of flamingos nesting on mudflats in huge colonies. As a child, Fiona would play games like hide and seek and tag with the flamingos, pet them and name them just as if they were her own playmates. As years went by, Fiona never lost her love for the beautiful pink birds. Her parents were getting on in years… and little by little Fiona absorbed many of the tasks around the property such as feeding and caring for the flamingos, which isn’t easy. She wears a yellow wader and drags herself slowly through the shallow salty alkaline wetland. Every morning at 5:00, she spreads buckets of crustaceans and slimy algae around the mudflats. She checks each mud nest for a single egg that is incubated by both parents for about a month. Fiona is well loved and accepted within the flock and they know that she is their protector. After the chick is hatched she makes sure that they receive enough “crop milk” and keeps an abundant supply in big freezers on the property. The chicks “fledge” in a few short months and ready themselves for an independent life.

Fiona loves her life among the birds. Living a secluded life in nature, she identifies with them so much that she has even dyed her hair a vibrant pink!"