They’re not native to Madison — their creator isn’t even from Wisconsin — and yet the city is obsessed with them.
So how did the plastic pink flamingo become Madison’s official city bird? It all started with a student prank in the 1970s.
UW-Madison students Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian were leaders of the notorious Pail and Shovel Party. In 1978, the group campaigned for seats in student government on the promise of converting the school budget into pennies to be dumped on Library Mall where students could “use pails and shovels to take what they wished,” according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
To their own surprise, the Pail and Shovel party ended up winning 29 of 36 seats in the Wisconsin Student Association. During their first year in office, Mallon and Varjian came up with some creative ways to spend their $80,000 budget, including throwing a 10,000-person toga party (blessed via telephone by Animal House star John Belushi himself), leading a Boom Box parade, and placing a partial replica of the Statue of Liberty on Lake Mendota.
“The best party I ever went to was Toga II,” longtime friend of Varjian’s Scott Mindock said in 2017. “It was in front of Memorial Union, and … 10,000 or 12,000 people showed up — everybody in togas. It was crazy.”
But on Sept. 4, 1979, the group orchestrated one of its most infamous pranks to date.
Working under the cover of darkness, members of the Pail and Shovel party covered Bascom Hill with 1,008 plastic pink flamingos. By some accounts, the prank holds the record for the largest-ever gathering of the plastic bird anywhere. Why 1,008? According to Destination Madison, the birds could only be ordered by the dozen, so the group ordered 84 dozen and went about their business.
In 2009, local journalist Doug Moe wrote a column in the Wisconsin State Journal advocating for the city to honor the 30th anniversary of the prank by naming the plastic pink flamingo Madison’s official city bird.
“The plastic pink flamingo as Madison's official bird just feels right on any number of levels,” Moe wrote. “I mean, Madison is a city with five official songs. Our council once debated renaming Bassett Street Ho Chi Minh Trail. Our manhole covers are sewer access covers. Through it all, we've always managed to laugh at ourselves. So what better symbol than the plastic pink flamingo?”
The council obliged. On Sept. 1, 2009, the Madison City Council voted 15-4 in favor of making the city’s love for the plastic bird official.
Since then, the plastic pink flamingo has continued to represent all things Madison. UW-Madison has carried on the tradition with its Fill the Hill fundraising initiative; In 2018, Forward Madison FC chose the bird as their official logo and their fan club adopted the name of "The Flock”; and the bird is featured prominently on murals and in gift shops around the city. Actual flamingos have yet to grace our shores, though they made it to Lake Michigan last year, so a girl can dream.
