Pink Flamingos Create Flap In Newton

NEWTON, Mass. -- Boston may be famous for Making Way for Ducklings, but Newton may soon be known for doing the same for flamingos -- as in the pink, plastic variety.

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NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill said they are typically associated with Florida, so why are they popping up on some of the nicest manicured lawns in the Northeast?

Spring has sprung in a most unusual way in one tiny Newton neighborhood.

"This was the winter that never seemed to end, and I would prefer to live somewhere warmer, so I brought the tropics to myself," Newton resident Jill Hunter said.

Hunter, an artist who lives in a big pink house on Prince Street, stuck a flock of pink flamingos in her yard.

"There was two feet of snow on the ground when she put them up, and it just cracked me up when I drove by her house," neighbor Mary Kessler said.

Some neighbors apparently didn't see it the same way. In fact, Hunter, a Miami native, received a nasty anonymous note.

"It said that this neighborhood was too stately and elegant for my plastic menagerie and my artificial flower beds and that I should remove them," Hunter said.

The note actually rallied a coalition of pro-flamingo neighbors who regularly stop by Hunter's pink palace to ask for their own displays.

Flamingos started flocking to other yards, nesting in neighborhood trees and even dining on delicacies like calamari. The owners of one home renamed their street Flamingo Road.

"We've had a couple of configurations out here. This current one, we call the Matrix, " one neighbor said.

Flamingos need water, and NewsCenter 5 even found a pair two miles away hanging out in Newton's Crystal Lake.

One flamingo fan said that it is about more than a piece of plastic.

"The green grass on the front lawns are empty, lifeless areas which these flamingos serve to animate and give life to it. That's why we've done it," neighbor Scott Oran said.