BATON ROUGE - The Baton Rouge Carnival season is off to the races.

The first sign of that was the Spanish Town flamingos flocking to the City Park lake.

The Krewe of Spanish Town stocked the lake last night and within hours of daylight, the flamingos went extinct.

Spanish Town President Bill Brumfield says it's become a tradition for the pink birds to be "adopted." 

Those coming to take the flamingos did just about anything to get their hands on a bird. Some went swimming, some went kayaking and one enthusiastic bird seeker even spent $40 to take their pink prize home.

The Spanish Town Ball is this Saturday, Jan. 23. The parade will follow its traditional route on Feb. 6.

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