Visitors can meet flamingos at Key West conservatory

KEY WEST (AP) - KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) -- Florida Keys visitors can now have up-close and personal encounters with two exotic pink flamingos.

Visitors to the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory had the opportunity Friday to sit on benches in a white gazebo while flamingos Rhett and Scarlett walked free and interacted as they chose.

While participants are not allowed to touch them, the flamingos sometimes play with their hair, react to human voices with honks and spread their coral-pink wings. 

Dubbed "Flamingle," the program is the latest daily offering at the conservatory, a 5,000-square-foot, glass-domed, rainforest-like habitat where visitors walk among some 1,000 butterflies. 

The flamingos were bred in Toronto and arrived at the conservatory in 2013. Their colorful pink plumage, social nature and foot-patting "dances" in their pond made them visitor favorites.

Online: www.keywestbutterfly.com/