The world’s only black flamingo returned to Cyprus this week – and I spent the week trying to photograph it.

I just had to find it first.

I’m not sure when my search became obsessive, but it involved:

1. Mud. Yes, up to my arse
2. A bawling, mud-coated boy who ‘Just wants to go home!!!!!’ And a car that was parked two kilometres away
3. A salt lake that ‘didn’t look that big’ – wrong, Wrong, WRONG! It’s massive, particularly when you take into account points 1 & 2
4. Driving through ginormous muddy puddles, hoping that the car wasn’t going to get stuck. See point 5
5. One broken Land Rover

It also involved Seven Crucial Mistakes. These will become clear.

So why the big deal? Well, because the Black Flamingo is a big deal. Scientists think that her colour is caused by a rare genetic mutation. She’s the only one. In the world. And she’s in Cyprus. Amazing!

Day One:
Akrotiri Environmental Centre is the best place to view the flamingos. It has a viewing platform with telescopes – and it’s free. So this was my first port of call.

I’ll quickly check where it is, then pop down to the lake to take a photo, I thought.

It took me and Pantelis, the Centre’s manager, half an hour just to find it through the telescope!

And here I made Mistake Number One: I refused to admit to myself that finding and photographing one particular flamingo in a colony of 10,000 is extremely difficult. Yes, even when that flamingo is black.

But a Reuters journalist called Marinos happened to be at the Environmental Centre doing a story on the black flamingo. He said I could come out to the salt lake with him to take a photo.

So off we strode. Through the mud, confident that I’d have my photo by lunchtime. We walked for 20 minutes and when we were as close as we could get without disturbing the birds, we got out our cameras and waited. And waited. And WAITED. Because there were thousands of pink ones between us and the black flamingo – and no one wanted to move.

After an inordinate amount of time, there was a parting in the pink haze and – if I really squinted – I could make out a tiny black dot. Putting my camera on full zoom, that dot looked vaguely flamingo-like. I snapped a ridiculous number of photos of the black dot.

Mistake Number Two: I should have left it at that.

Day Two:

AM
Disappointed by my photo of a black dot from the previous day, I returned to the Environmental Centre to find out where the black flamingo was today. Pantelis told me it had been spotted on the far side of the lake.

Mistake Number Three: Thinking I could get to the far side of the lake.

I figured that there must be a way to the Far Side from Asomatos, the village that runs parallel to the northern shore. Over the course of the morning, I explored all the side roads of Asomatos, hoping one would take me down to the northern shore of the lake. Most led to farms and people’s homes. I drove down a track past Fasouri Nursery and finally seemed to be getting somewhere. But the track was very muddy and soon became too muddy to drive through. I turned around. And spotted footpaths leading into the woods – and to the salt lake.

PM
Goobie was with me now and so we walked along the footpaths through the woods. We reached another path that ran between the woods and the reed-beds at the edge of the salt lake. I was getting closer. I felt certain that the black flamingo was just the other side of the reeds. Except the reeds were the size of houses and there was no way through.

We walked and walked, hoping for a break in the reeds. There wasn’t one.

Day Three:

AM

Day Two’s efforts showed that there really is a track that runs along the northern shore of the salt lake near Asomatos. I will call it THE TRACK to differentiate it from the zillions of other tracks I drove down. I couldn’t drive all the way along THE TRACK because it was too muddy. However, if I could find a way to get onto THE TRACK further along, it might not be as muddy there. So I decided to Get Tactical.

On the floor of the reception area in the Environmental Centre is a massive aerial photo of the salt lake. If you look closely you can see a little brown vein running along the outside of the lake on the northern shore – this is THE TRACK. And, hallelujah, I could see on the map that THE TRACK appeared to lead to a break in the reed-beds where it joined another track that went onto the salt lake. This meant that there was a way to the Far Side of the lake. Hurrah! I took lots of photos. It appeared that I might be able to access THE TRACK from the eastern end of the lake near Lady’s Mile.

‘The tracks are very muddy there,’ Pantelis said. I smiled politely and ignored the warning.

I got lost driving along Lady’s Mile, but I won’t go into that because it’s embarrassing. Given that the area is totally flat and you can see for miles.

I finally found a track leading from Lady’s Mile towards the salt lake. I drove along it but, instead of it taking me to THE TRACK, it just disappeared into the salt lake. The salt lake is a protected area and shouldn’t be driven on. I turned the car around.

I drove on to the Port, then left past My Mall and on to Asomatos again. Feeling stumped, I drove down a few of the side roads I’d discovered the previous day. I kept further east this time in the hope of joining THE TRACK from the opposite (hopefully not as muddy) end. I went past a supermarket warehouse and various farms. Into woods. Round and round and round. Then, finally, I found THE TRACK! And a wall of reeds. But I knew from the map that there was a break further ahead allowing access to the salt lake.

I ploughed on enthusiastically, taking a massive muddy puddle a little too fast. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Waves of muddy water rose up on both sides of the car.

Mistake Number Four: leaving the car windows open.

I wasn’t too worried about my mud-splatted sunglasses – I could clean them. Ditto my muddy hair. And there’s a very good car valeting service in Pissouri. But the portable Bose docking station on the passenger seat was a concern. It no longer looked quite so shiny. Mud can do that. I dried it, and my iPod, with a small area of clean t-shirt found under my left buttock. Then I tentatively switched it on. It worked.

Mud Schmudd.

Looking feral, but feeling optimistic, I drove on. The puddles were getting deeper and thicker. I shot through one and experienced the odd sensation of turning the steering wheel one way but feeling the car slide another. In the direction of a bush.

I looked ahead at bigger, muddier puddles. I didn’t want to get stuck here because there was no way our little Toyota would be able to get this far to pull the Land Rover out of the mud. I turned back.

PM
Goobie was with me now and, after a closer look at the Environmental Centre maps, I thought I could see another way past Fasouri Nursery to get to the break in the reed-beds. We reached Fasouri Nursery and found that the map was right. There was a track that took us east through the trees, turned south and – hooray!! – came out in the middle of THE TRACK. I drove a short way east and there before me was the break in the reed-beds where THE TRACK joined a little track that led onto the salt lake. It was like finding the lost city of Atlantis.

I wasn’t going to drive onto the salt lake so we parked and got out. Goobie and I were in high spirits as we set off along the little track towards the salt lake. In the distance the shore glinted in the sunlight. Finally, I’d reached the Far Side.

The little track turned east and ran parallel with the shore. I could see the huge colony of flamingos ahead, right near the edge of the salt lake. They looked about a 10-minute walk away. It was slow-going walking through sticky mud, but we walked on excitedly, Goobie happily jumping over the puddles. It wasn’t long before he was ‘accidentally’ jumping into the muddy puddles.

Mistake Number Five: forgetting his wellies

His trainers were now already wet so I thought what the heck and let him carry on. Yes, he fell in the mud once, but he was still laughing so that was fine. I congratulated myself for being so chilled-out in allowing him to Be-At-One-With-Nature. Right.

We walked for another 10 minutes and met a friendly photographer who was doing the same thing. He told me that, yes, the black flamingo was in the colony ahead and showed Goobie some AWESOME photos he’d taken. A second photographer joined us, carrying what looked like a ballistic missile launcher. With camouflage on it. Seriously, I’ve never seen such a massive camera. He was out of breath and looked exhausted.

‘I’ve just walked all the way from the Port,’ he puffed.

Ha ha! A fellow obsessive.

We walked on, I quickening my pace, knowing that my dream photo was just 10 minutes ahead.

‘Mummy, my feet are cold.’

I turned round – Goobie was looking a bit bedraggled.

‘Keep walking, Boo, and they will warm up.’ Not my finest parenting moment. ‘Just 10 more minutes and we’ll head back.’

He’s a stoic chap, so we carried on.

Mistake Number Six: thinking that a 10-kilometre salt lake isn’t 10-kilometres long.

10 minutes later and the colony didn’t look much closer.

‘Nearly there, just round this bend.’

20 minutes after going round the bend, Goobie went, well, round the bend.

‘I WANT TO GO HOME!!!’ he wailed.

And still I couldn’t drag myself away. Just in front were the flamingos. Surely only another 10 minutes away . . .

I sang to him and acted silly – this bought me an extra 5 mins. But the sun was beginning to set and it was getting colder. I put my hoodie on him, but he was wet and mud-splatted and cold.

And I finally admitted that after nearly an hour’s walking, the flamingos didn’t look much nearer.

Defeated, we headed back.

Day Four
I set off early. This time I knew exactly where to go and I was on my own so could get there a lot quicker.

Mistake Number Seven: forgetting that flamingos have wings and can fly away.

The Environmental Centre told me that the black flamingo and a third of the colony had flown away during the night.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Two days later, the Land Rover broke. A large metal thing fell off the bottom while I was shopping. Our little Toyota came and rescued me.

………..

The Photo

So here is the best photo I’ve got of the black flamingo (taken on Day One). It’s been cropped, tinkered with and is blurry. But you can at least see that it’s a flamingo.

Yes, I’m disappointed. It’s not the photo I’d had in my head. And, after all the hassle, it’s not the way this story should end. As a former book publisher, I like satisfying endings. This story hasn’t got one.

Things learned during my search

1. That occasionally life isn’t like a book
2. Despite what the adverts want you to believe, muddy puddles can break a Land Rover
3. However, muddy puddles don’t always break Bose docking stations
4. I can be one crazy obsessive sometimes