I don’t know about you, but, it seems so wrong to call such a beautiful bird a lesser flamingo. Sure they are generally smaller than other flamingos, but, as you can see, they are every bit as stunning as their taller cousins.
Claude Gibney Finch-Davies (1875-1920) painted our feathered friend in 1919. A number of his paintings would later appear in two books on South African birds published in the early 1940s. Finch-Davies is remembered for his beautiful ornithological paintings. He was a British soldier, who spent most of his life in South Africa. He worked closely with the Transvaal Museum. He painted birds for them and they gave him access to their journals and preserved specimens.
This is the prettiest flamingo drawing that I’ve found so far to share with you. I hope you like it as much as I do. With bright pink feathers, black tipped wings and his deep red beak; he’s a stunning fellow.
I’ve included a smaller version of the lesser flamingo drawing to fit on this page and save a bit of bandwidth. Please click on this pretty bird to access the larger version of the file.
Please note: while this lesser flamingo print has been making the rounds online for several years, I would be remiss if I did not mention it’s potential copyright issues. Though dated 1919; it may not have been published prior to 1926 (public domain automatically in the USA). The author of the 1940’s era books is Austin Roberts (1883-1948). That puts this work in the public domain anywhere that follows the Berne Standard of death+70 years; regardless of whether Finch-Davies or Roberts would have held the copyright. Of further note, South Africa only extends copyright protection for literary works and artistic works, 50 years after the death of the creator.
This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.
