Zookeepers in Scotland have revealed that the Edinburgh Zoo is home to a pair of gay flamingos—and the same-sex couple has started a family.

The zoo added five Chilean flamingo chicks earlier this year, but one of the baby birds was knocked out the nest by its parents and abandoned. "We don't usually intervene with our flamingo flock but as this was our first egg since 2010, we carefully picked it up and placed it back on the nest," says senior bird keeper Nick Dowling. "Luckily, one of our same-sex male couples went straight onto the nest, fostered the egg and raised it as their own."

The Edinburgh zoo is home to 38 Chilean pink flamingos, which are listed as "near threatened" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List with less than 300,000 in the wild.

Thankfully the adopted chick, now about five weeks old, seems to be thriving.

"We've been able to utilise these male-male bonds and it's working out fairly well. Male male pairs are equally able to rear youngsters," said aviary director Colin Oulton.