0:00

Hey, Ian here, and I want to tell

0:02

you about a new series from our fellow Radiotopia

0:04

show, Radio Diaries. It's

0:06

called The Unmarked Graveyard. I

0:09

share a studio with the Radio Diaries

0:11

folks, and I have been hearing about this

0:13

series for months, and

0:16

it sounds incredible. Here's what

0:18

it's about. In the waters off New York

0:20

City, there's a narrow strip of land

0:23

called Heart Island. More than a million

0:25

people are buried there in mass

0:27

graves with no headstones. Over

0:30

the next few weeks, the award-winning team

0:32

at Radio Diaries will be untangling mysteries

0:35

from America's largest public cemetery.

0:38

Neil Harris was last seen in Inwood, New

0:40

York on December 12th. So many questions, man.

0:43

So many questions. You can't help but

0:45

wonder what her life has been. I

0:47

never went back, and I never looked

0:49

for him again. Subscribe to Radio

0:51

Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.

0:55

Every year, before they put us outside, they

0:58

give our primary wing feathers

1:00

a trim so that we can't fly.

1:02

Okay. And one year, they

1:05

missed me. They just skipped

1:07

over you. They just skipped over me. They didn't

1:10

notice. There

1:14

was a new keeper, and he just did

1:16

not trim. So

1:19

they put us out onto our little pond, and

1:22

I took a deep breath of air. I

1:25

got a running start across the water, basically

1:29

running on the water like you're Jesus Christ.

1:32

And I kind of catch myself with a little flap,

1:35

and then I flap again. And

1:38

oh my God, I'm slightly above

1:41

the ground.

1:43

And I got faster and faster,

1:46

and I just ran

1:49

right over the topiary, which seems

1:52

impossible, but I

1:54

did it. And I run over

1:56

the topiary, and I said, this

1:57

is it. And I took to the skies.

2:01

I could feel the air in my lungs and

2:03

the wind on my face and I

2:06

hated it. It was disgusting.

2:09

It was a bug

2:12

immediately flew into my face and into

2:15

my mouth. There was nothing redeeming

2:17

about it. It was a horrible experience, a

2:20

flight. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

2:23

My name is Harry and I am

2:25

a flamingo.

2:27

Well, tell me a

2:29

little bit more about your enclosure. You're in there with,

2:31

is it 20 other flamingos? Oh,

2:34

the flock is actually larger than you might expect. The

2:37

flock is about 35 strong. Do

2:39

you know everybody's name? Oh

2:41

my gosh. I wish I could lie and

2:44

say I did. I spent all of my life

2:46

with them. I was born in captivity. I've

2:48

spent all my life with all of these flamingos. But

2:51

I only know about half of their names. A lot of the

2:53

times I'll see someone. I'll say, hi friend.

2:56

Hi pal. Hi chief. Sport.

2:59

Sometimes I'll say sport. Or

3:01

sometimes I'm like, hello gorgeous. And

3:03

I'll toss them a little wink. But I don't know their

3:05

names. And to be honest, a lot of the zookeepers

3:07

don't even know their names. Some of us

3:09

have names. But most of us

3:12

have numbers. And let

3:14

me tell you, I am so grateful

3:16

I'm not a number flamingo and I'm a name

3:18

flamingo. Well, how did you get your

3:20

name? Yeah, sometimes the zookeepers

3:22

will give names to the

3:25

chicks that were abandoned by their

3:27

parents and they had to raise. Or

3:29

if one of us is just not well,

3:32

if one of us is a little sickly and

3:35

they think, oh, this guy's not going to make

3:37

it another season, then they'll

3:39

give us a name just to remember us

3:41

by. So are there some flamingos you're

3:43

closer to? Do you have friends

3:45

within the 35? I'd

3:48

say I have friends. Dolly

3:51

Parton's really good friend. So

3:55

Frank Sinatra's pretty close with Frank Sinatra. I

3:58

hang out with... Adam Driver

4:01

sometimes which is nice and you're

4:03

just Harry. Oh, I'm Harry

4:06

Connick Jr. Is my full name

4:08

is Harry Connick Jr. Do you have a best

4:10

friend? Yeah, actually

4:13

I do David Oyelowo and

4:15

me and David hang out all the time. It's actually Most

4:18

of us have best friends. We have you know one

4:20

or two flamingos that we Hang

4:23

out with a lot. It's tricky. You know you can't

4:25

be friends with everyone in the flock

4:28

Because of the shove right and

4:30

that's another reason like I like to kind of Stay

4:33

to the edge of things. Did you say because of the

4:36

shove? Yes, because of the shove

4:38

it's kind of a big thing with flamingos where we'll

4:40

just kind of shove each other sometimes Even

4:43

if there's plenty of room like you're you're

4:45

gonna get shoved Everybody hates it, but

4:47

we all do it. I shove I shove all the time.

4:50

I shove someone just Ten minutes before

4:52

we started this conversation What kind where

4:54

what are you shoving with your wings or it's

4:57

just kind of like um? It just kind of like

4:59

you run into someone as if you're

5:02

like a reckless driver You'll

5:04

just run straight through someone Sometimes

5:07

I'll mark like the time of day by a shove

5:10

like I typically get shoved in the afternoon. I

5:12

like to shove in the morning Some

5:15

of them are more evening shivers right before bed They

5:17

like to give someone a push and

5:19

they'll flap around and note You know squeal

5:21

on the ground or whatever and then look

5:23

it right back up. Well you mentioned You

5:27

were born in captivity. I take

5:29

it abandoned by your parents

5:32

Yeah, can you tell me what happened? My

5:36

mother built a mud nest a

5:38

little code of mud It's a

5:40

raised bowl almost almost

5:42

like a cup out of okay mud

5:45

mud and feces

5:48

and it's not very tall it's maybe a little

5:50

less than a foot tall okay,

5:53

and I and I fell

5:55

out of it

5:58

Okay

5:59

I fell out of mud nest and by

6:02

the time I came back, mother did not recognize

6:04

me anymore. And it was only

6:06

maybe five minutes. She

6:09

just looked at me and she said, who is

6:12

this? I said, mother, it's me. She

6:14

said, no, that can't possibly be true

6:18

because my child was in the mud nest

6:21

and you were outside of the mud nest. And

6:24

that's when the keepers took me and

6:28

gave me a name. Wow,

6:31

that's so sad. I

6:35

think I would have liked to have been a bird

6:37

reared. I think it's sad

6:39

that I wasn't bird reared because

6:43

the birds that were reared by the birds, they get along

6:46

real well. Like everyone

6:48

gets shoved but they get shoved significantly

6:50

less than the hand reared

6:52

birds who are just seen as kind

6:54

of just a little bit apart

6:56

from things like, oh, you're so fancy. You

6:59

had to have, you know, someone had to

7:01

like inject flamingo milk into you

7:03

with the little syringe. You're too

7:05

good for a mother's milk. It

7:07

sounds like in my world, like

7:09

when you find out somebody went to private school.

7:13

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

7:19

One thing people know about flamingos that

7:21

I wanna ask about, what

7:24

is the deal with standing on one

7:26

leg? Well, yeah,

7:29

I mean, I don't know.

7:31

Sometimes it's kind of like a bravado thing, kind of

7:33

like a machismo thing for us. But

7:35

at the same time, you're letting predators

7:38

know, like you don't want me because

7:40

you're not gonna get it as much bang

7:42

for your buck, frankly. If they see,

7:45

you know, that I only have one leg, it's

7:47

not a lot of meat, but it is less

7:50

meat. So they see that I

7:52

have one leg, maybe they see a different animal with two

7:54

legs over there. They think, oh my gosh, it's

7:58

way more worth my time. the leg.

8:01

Double the leg

8:02

for the same amount of struggle ultimately.

8:05

It's a, I think a fundamental

8:08

difference between being a human

8:11

in

8:11

this world and being another

8:14

animal. Is

8:16

humans experience racism?

8:18

That is one. Another

8:21

is other creatures kind of

8:23

have to always think about how much

8:25

meat they are, whereas that's not ever

8:28

something I think about for myself. Yeah,

8:31

I'm constantly worried. I mean, it's

8:33

good because as of flamingo, I

8:35

am not much meat,

8:37

right?

8:38

But I'm enough meat for

8:41

a coyote. You know, I don't want to rag

8:43

on myself. I'm a good snack for

8:46

something coyote sized or smaller. But

8:49

you're right, I'm not much meat. You on

8:51

the other hand, you're

8:54

a lot of meat. I am a lot of meat. What

8:57

is the animal you fear the most if

9:00

fear is the right way to think about it? I

9:03

guess from a tangible perspective, birds

9:06

of prey, anything eagle sized

9:08

I think

9:09

is terrifying to me.

9:10

Other birds. Yes. Birds,

9:13

I think as a group, a lot of us

9:15

have taken different paths.

9:18

And some of us have taken the path

9:20

of being kind of a passive, beautiful

9:23

filter feeder. And others

9:25

of us

9:26

are almost like

9:28

skylions celebrated

9:31

and feared by thousands.

9:33

Sky lions. Sky lions, giant

9:36

cats that fly through the sky and

9:39

kill recklessly and

9:41

mercilessly.

9:43

I mean, the grass is always greener,

9:45

you know what I mean? Because as far

9:47

as birds that live in the water with long legs,

9:50

there's nothing better. Do you

9:52

know what I mean? We're at the top of that

9:55

category. But then you

9:57

look over and you see, oh my God. there's

10:00

an osprey snatching

10:02

a catfish out of the water like

10:04

it's nothing and Flying

10:06

around with it. It's like wow. I can't even my

10:09

feet are useless except for standing. What

10:11

can I can't grab anything with my feet and I

10:15

try not to be jealous because what where

10:17

does jealousy get you?

10:19

But it's hard sometimes

10:21

to think about that

10:24

Walmart this is Aaron. Hi.

10:27

I'm called for it. Is this Aaron Cummings? Yeah,

10:31

I'm with man. It was New York number. Is

10:33

this uh, what's that or what's your name? My

10:36

name my name's Ian

10:38

Ian yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:40

Well Aaron you own a campground in Michigan.

10:42

Yes, sir

10:44

Can you tell us about the bird sighting

10:46

recently? Well, one

10:49

of the folks that stays in our park Went

10:51

out duck hunting and he was out in

10:53

some open water near some small weeds

10:56

Okay, and they had some goose decoys kind

10:58

of set off on the side because we have a chance

11:01

at some Canadian geese around here right

11:04

and they look up and saw something

11:06

goofy coming in that was Obviously

11:08

elongated that they weren't gonna shoot at

11:11

just you obviously around around

11:13

here at the natural Migration flyway

11:15

so you don't shoot at stuff that you don't identify Yeah,

11:18

so they let land and they started taking pictures

11:21

and suction. It was a pink pink

11:23

flamingo Flamingos, of course

11:25

are not native to

11:27

Michigan They must have really

11:30

been surprised to see it. I

11:33

mean, honestly, you see I'm a I'm a waterfall

11:35

hunter So we have white

11:38

Pelicans around here with the black tip wings We

11:41

have a lot of different species of birds around here

11:44

and and I really don't think much of it But

11:46

there's these burgers that were calling me and

11:49

what they do is when we when we shoot a

11:51

duck We kind of exit off our chart.

11:53

We all have this big chart, you know, it's kind of a bucket

11:55

list thing Okay, well these

11:57

birders if they take a picture of a bird they it

12:00

off their chart and that's their bucket list thing.

12:02

So to these birders, it was

12:04

much more of a big deal to these birders

12:07

than it was us dock hunters. Don't

12:09

get me wrong, it's very cool, but as

12:12

a dock hunter, I mean, I'd rather see something

12:15

I can

12:15

shoot at.

12:19

So these birds, what

12:22

happened was Hurricane

12:24

Edalia in the Caribbean

12:27

blew a bunch of flamingos

12:29

off course from down there.

12:32

They've been sighted in Ohio, Kansas.

12:35

I think yours was the only one in Michigan.

12:38

Yeah, we are the, well, I shouldn't

12:40

say we, one of my campers is

12:43

the first person in Michigan that has

12:45

laid eyes on flamingos in

12:47

Michigan. And to add to that

12:49

story, when that group of guys got back from

12:51

their hunt, they were all getting undressed,

12:54

taking their waiters off and such. One

12:56

of the gentlemen had on flamingo

13:00

shorts. I don't

13:03

know if it was underwear or just a pair of shorts, but

13:05

he, there were, you know, those fancy,

13:08

uh, it was meant to be, I guess.

13:11

Yeah. And I just thought, what are the chances of seeing

13:14

a flamingo and having on flamingo

13:17

shorts? Is this the weirdest

13:20

thing you've ever seen on your campground? Yeah,

13:22

being a campground owner, I've seen some pretty weird stuff,

13:25

but bird-wise, yeah, that's the weirdest

13:27

bird.

13:42

So I think, I think most people know that flamingos

13:45

get their color from all the shrimp

13:47

they eat. Can I ask, do you ever

13:49

get tired of eating shrimp? No,

13:53

no, shrimp is delicious. And in many ways,

13:55

it's the perfect food. I don't even understand

13:57

why you would ask that. What do you eat that's so great? you

14:00

think I should be eating?

14:02

Well, I eat shrimp too. It's

14:04

not about

14:05

what other foods, it's just having

14:07

other foods. It's not what else would

14:10

I think you would want, it's just, I

14:12

think having just shrimp every meal

14:15

forever would

14:17

be difficult for me.

14:19

I don't know, like little cakes,

14:22

like what do you want me to say? I wish I was eating

14:25

little cakes or ice creams or, I

14:27

don't know, hams? I don't know what

14:29

you get. I only see

14:32

what people eat at the zoo and it's mostly

14:34

soft serve

14:35

and hot dogs.

14:38

I don't know if it's necessarily worth

14:40

it. I don't even understand how physically you

14:42

would eat a hot dog. Do

14:45

you flip upside down to eat? No, you don't.

14:47

Well, no, so we chew, we

14:49

have teeth, and we chew the food.

14:52

Oh, of course, yeah, yeah, you chew the food.

14:53

Have you ever, I guess, I don't know how you would have

14:55

ever seen, do you know about lawn

14:58

flamingos, pink lawn flamingos?

15:01

Lawn flamingos.

15:04

There's a lawn ornament that

15:06

people buy. It's a

15:08

plastic facsimile of a flamingo

15:10

on metal legs and they put them

15:12

in their lawns, their front

15:14

lawns to display. As

15:17

a warning,

15:19

like if you were a flamingo, do not come, do

15:21

not come to the lawn. Is that?

15:26

It's just a decoration. Okay,

15:28

just like an ornamental. Okay, gotcha.

15:32

No, I haven't seen that and I haven't heard of it.

15:36

I'm actually impressed, I suppose,

15:39

that we have such

15:41

a cultural

15:43

impact among you

15:44

because I've gotta be honest, we don't

15:46

talk about humans that much. We

15:49

don't discuss you and we certainly

15:51

don't manufacture humans

15:53

to sit anywhere near us. That

15:56

is, to think about that, the fact that

15:58

humans have thought a lot about flamingos.

15:59

flamingos,

16:01

but flamingos have thought very little about

16:03

humans.

16:04

No, no. And of course we wouldn't.

16:06

You know, a human is not a shrimp, a

16:09

human is not a pellet.

16:10

So like a human doesn't fall within

16:12

the scope of what we think about on a regular

16:15

basis. We care, I'll

16:17

just speak for myself, I care a lot

16:19

more about you than you ever

16:21

would about me. You know, I think that's

16:24

true. I think it's a fact for better or

16:26

for worse. I

16:29

like going to the zoo. And

16:31

one thing that happens at the zoo that I kind of never

16:33

know how to process it is a

16:36

pigeon or a squirrel,

16:38

something that is not a zoo animal, will

16:40

be in the zoo running around. And

16:42

there's always something so weird about that. I wonder

16:45

what your reaction is when a

16:46

non-zoo animal just kind of wanders

16:48

in.

16:49

I personally am not a fan

16:52

of vagrants or vagrancy or

16:54

drifting or drifters.

16:56

We have mallards. We're

17:00

riddled with mallards and gulls.

17:02

And these are city

17:05

birds. These are urban birds

17:07

with no qualms.

17:09

And so we're fed this delicious pelleted

17:12

shrimp diet. But apparently

17:15

we're just, apparently there's enough to go around. Apparently

17:17

there's enough for everybody because they

17:19

fly in and they just start dabbling at the water

17:22

and sucking down all our pellets as

17:24

if they weren't birds, you know, as if they were hogs.

17:27

And these little

17:29

hog birds are eating all of

17:31

our food. Let me tell you, when the mallards

17:33

are there, it becomes, oh, suddenly

17:35

we're in the mallard exhibit.

17:37

Suddenly I'm just a flamingo in the mallard

17:40

exhibit. It's like how many of them are

17:42

we going to let in? I

17:44

mean, I don't want to sound awful

17:47

or anything. It's just how many.

17:50

Do I sound, I don't want to sound, do I sound like a bad

17:52

individual?

17:55

I think

17:57

there's, you know, if there is enough,

17:59

if there are enough.

17:59

are enough resources to go around,

18:03

what's the problem? I think that might be a reaction

18:05

you might get. Look, I imagine

18:07

there are enough resources to go around, right?

18:10

Like the zoo I live in, it's very well funded.

18:13

However, are there

18:15

too many ducks?

18:17

I think it's maybe something to – do

18:20

people come to the zoo to see mallards,

18:23

which they might see at any pond

18:26

or in any local drainage ditch? Respectfully,

18:30

do people come to the zoo to see drainage

18:32

ditch birds or do they come to the zoo

18:34

to see flamingos? I

18:37

don't know, just maybe something for

18:40

everyone to noodle on, to think about

18:42

for a little while is how many ditch

18:44

birds do we need?

18:46

Can I ask, is your mother there

18:49

in the enclosure with you? Yep.

18:53

But they don't know.

18:55

When you asked me earlier if I spoke

18:57

to any flamingos, I do not talk

18:59

to them. And

19:00

that's okay. That's weird because you're strange,

19:03

but you're around her every day. Yeah,

19:06

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm

19:08

around her constantly. I

19:11

was eating, kind

19:14

of dabbling at the surface of the water, and

19:17

I was a good 30 feet

19:19

away from the rest of the flock,

19:21

which was kind of on my own.

19:23

And out of nowhere, she flies

19:27

at me.

19:30

I had a

19:31

good clip. And when I say fly, I

19:33

do mean flaps violently.

19:35

Because of course, she wasn't flying.

19:38

And I immediately tipped all the way over.

19:42

And as she moves past me, she goes, sorry,

19:45

Charlie. And

19:47

I said, oh.

19:49

At first, I thought it was just a saying. You know, sometimes

19:51

folks say things like, sorry, Charlie.

19:54

She thought my name was Charlie.

19:59

That's who I was.

19:59

was. Ultimately she was wrong

20:03

and I of course I was screaming from the mud. I said

20:05

that's I'm your son I'm your

20:07

son how could you? And she said

20:09

you're no son of mine you're not in the mud nest

20:12

and she just never I guess put

20:14

it together there's

20:16

been no resolution. I

20:19

would I would like to have some sort of relationship

20:22

you know

20:23

with my mother but

20:25

you know she's busy she's she's got her own

20:27

stuff going on she's

20:30

she does a lot of standing

20:33

and sometimes she

20:35

eats that takes

20:37

a lot of time day-to-day

20:40

wise

20:41

the standing and the eating so you know it's

20:43

fine we all have busy schedules

20:46

to keep up with. This

21:00

is The Animals. The show

21:03

is produced by Jennifer Mills and me Ian

21:05

Chilog with Eva Warchover. Our

21:08

editor is Hilary Frank. Harry

21:11

the Flamingo is played by Vinnie

21:13

Thomas. You can find Vinnie on

21:15

the social media of your choice at

21:17

V-I-N-N underscore

21:20

A-Y-Y. Just one more

21:22

question if you could get

21:25

over the topiary. Yeah. Where would you

21:27

go? If I could which of course I can't

21:29

because it is a topiary and therefore impassable.

21:31

I would go to the

21:33

aquarium part of the zoo. I

21:37

know they got shrimp in there. Vinnie's audio

21:39

was recorded at the North Fig Sound

21:41

Studio from Western Sound in

21:43

Los Angeles California. Their

21:46

website is North Fig Sound

21:48

Studio dot com. I know

21:50

they got big shrimps little shrimps

21:53

I would go straight to the

21:55

aquarium

21:56

and I would eat every invertebrate

21:58

I could get my hands

21:59

on. The Animals is

22:02

a proud member of Radiotopia from

22:04

PRX. Audrey Martovich,

22:06

executive producer, Yuri Lasordo,

22:09

director of network operations. Thanks

22:12

as always to Emily Spivak. If

22:14

you want to support this project, tell your friends

22:17

or your animals. We

22:19

also have t-shirts. You can find them via

22:21

our website EverythingIsAlive.com.

22:25

We'll be back with another animal in

22:28

two weeks.