"Small but still bossy," Art Yerian, wildlife care supervisor for Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park, said with a grin.

It's exactly what he likes to see, healthy interaction among birds that four months ago were shivering gray fuzz balls.

On June 7, Yerian and a team of volunteers drove 300 miles to Miami with the goal of capturing full grown, fully pink, flamingos from the infield of Hialeah Park, the famous horse track.

The plan backfired because the flamingos would not go near nets placed by their feeding troughs. So Yerian got in a canoe and paddled to a small island that held more than 100 fledglings.

Their clothes soaked and caked with mud, Yerian and his charges snatched as many babies as they could, 80 in all. They were ferried across the water, placed inside an air-conditioned truck and moments later divided among several zoos.

Homosassa left with 28. (Two have since died but casualties are common among fragile wildlife.) When they arrived at their new home, the flamingos were placed under the care of park ranger Susan Lowe, who during the first month handfed them up to four times per day.

"Their metabolism is quite high and yet you have to be careful not to overfeed them because it can mess up their bone structure. They can grow too fast for what their frame is," Lowe said.

When released into the park, the flamingos joined 15 others brought there a few years ago. The older residents are healthy, too, but have not produced offspring.

Because flamingos are more comfortable in large groups, they might now breed more successfully.

"It could be three, four or five years before we get live chicks, but who knows," Lowe said. "I'm very optimistic."

They have years to try. Flamingos live well into their 40s, she added.

One pleasant surprise has been how quickly the flamingos have started to change color. Yerian and Lowe thought it would take a year but the process has already begun. The birds get their color from certain vitamins and shrimp.

Eventually, the young flamingos will turn dark pink. Their wing feathers will be black and, when outstretched, will provide a striking contrast.

Perhaps because they are so common - usually in the form of a plastic lawn ornament - flamingos are not a heavy draw at the park.

On Friday, not even the alligators, which looked as though they had just swallowed a barnyard of pigs, were the main attraction. That honor went to Lucifer, the hippo with a taste for watermelon.