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Flamingos flock for FIFA
- Laurie Craig
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Couple’s Auke Bay front yard becomes a pitch for pink players keeping pace with World Cup matches
By Laurie Craig
Juneau Independent
Auke Lake’s fanciful flamingo flock is celebrating the international soccer World Cup competition along with fans in Juneau who drive past the familiar and regularly changing display.
The plastic flamingo lawn ornaments are typically arranged for topical events such as University of Alaska Southeast’s (UAS) graduation, Halloween, May Day, Juneau’s Jazz and Classics music festival, Juneau’s Ironman, Easter and most major holidays.
This year, in lieu of an Independence Day theme, on Friday, July 3, flamingo family Dana Hanselman and Kalei Shotwell set up their Auke Lake front yard flamingos to celebrate Monday’s upcoming soccer match between the United States and Belgium. Dana stapled the flag of Belgium on the wooden fence near the white wire basket that represented the European country’s goal area. A matching storage box at the opposite end sported an American flag and a tailgate party with flamingos gathered with beer and soft drinks.
“We just wanted to try something that was happening everywhere,” said Shotwell as she tied a long white yarn braid to the head of a pink plastic flamingo. “We’re all a community, so that’s why we can celebrate together and we can celebrate what’s going on in the world.”
As flamingo spectator beaks hooked over the top of the wooden fence on the family’s property, Shotwell spoke about the inspiration for this month’s scene. They recently visited Panama and Costa Rica where those countries were preparing for their countries’ global soccer tournaments.
“No matter where you turned,” Shotwell said, “everyone was excited. It’s just nice to see unity, you know? And not division.”
“We’re all on this planet together. We’re all just trying to get through the day,” she added. “Everybody was involved, everybody was having fun.”
According to the classic listing of terms for multiple members of a group, a flock of flamingos is called a “stand.” The Book of St. Albans first established collective nouns in the year 1486, giving imaginative identities to animals, in particular. For example, several ravens are known as an “unkindness” and crows as a “murder.” An updated book (1968) titled “An Exaltation of Larks” by James Lipton documents more than 1,000 words in this category. For Englishmen such as this writer’s father, education in the plural names was part of a young person’s formal education. The training caused frustration in the young Wirral Peninsula lad, he reported to his daughter, because there were so many names to memorize. Today, Americans and others accept a “convocation of eagles,” a “pod” or “gam” of whales, and a “sloth of bears” as appropriate terms. Another colorful word for a flock of flamingos is a “flamboyance.”
Hanselman inherited the flamingo display task from the previous owner of the family’s home. Over the years, friends and strangers have dropped off their spare pink lawn birds until the Auke Lake flock has grown to almost a hundred flamingos. The extras hang by their beaky noses over the top of the wooden fence.
Hanselman, Shotwell and their neighbors are also responsible for another Auke Lake tradition: the frozen lake’s tripod that mimics the famous Nenana Ice Classic with rewards for guessing the exact date when the tripod falls over as the lake ice thaws.
To see more of the famous flock’s antics, including the birds dressed in little sweaters knit by local friends, check Facebook for “Auke Lake Flamingos.”
• Contact Laurie Craig at lauriec@juneauindependent.com.
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