Flamingo missing from Cornwall park appears to be in France

A flamingo that went missing from a wildlife sanctuary in Cornwall over a week ago appears to now be living in northern France.

Two photographs show a young flamingo on a beach in Treflez, Finistere, on Sunday morning.

Frankie escaped from a walled garden at the park on Sunday 2 November, despite having clipped feathers.

Paradise Park director Nick Reynolds said there was a colony of greater flamingos in southern France and “the best scenario would be that Frankie goes and finds them and lives out her life with them”.

Mr Reynolds said: “We’re pretty certain it is Frankie from the photos we’ve seen.

“You can see the right wing has some feathers missing, which is where we would have cut her wings to keep her here.

“We’re just waiting for some more pictures to come through for better confirmation.”

Mr Reynolds added it had been a “really difficult” week since the flamingo went missing but seeing the new photographs had been “lovely”.

“She looks fit and well, which is brilliant,” Mr Reynolds said.

He said it was well within a flamingo’s capabilities to fly that distance, albeit “not a small feat”.

He said the paperwork and complexities of bird flu regulations would make it challenging to rehome Frankie in the UK and he hoped that she found a flamingo colony in southern France.

Frankie was born in July and was the first chick to hatch from her nest and be reared by her parents at the park.

Mr Reynolds asked anyone who saw her to send photographs and locations to the team via the Paradise Park Facebook account.

“She’s still our baby and we want to know what’s happening with her,” he said.