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For the past two months, High Point has been the perch for several dozen exotic birds. Flamingos, actually.

This spring these pink, tropical and very festive birds have been calling High Point home.

Their migratory habits have been predictable. They select a yard in the late afternoon or early evening, take over the lawn for three or four days and then move to another yard.

Did I mention that these birds prefer to perch in front yards? Or that they have an affinity for those of the Baptist faith? Or that these beautiful pink birds need the assistance of a hoard of enthusiastic teenagers to move from one habitat to another?

If any of this makes sense to you, then I wager you’ve been “flocked.”

Since March, the youths of Emerywood Baptist Church have been “flocking” the lawns of parishioners in an ingenious fundraiser.

Here’s how it works. For $25 you pay the youth group to flock someone’s lawn. They adorn your front yard with two dozen plastic flamingos on metal posts. Don’t be disappointed it’s not the feathered variety.

The Flamingo Emerywood Baptist (Phoenicopterus emerywood baptistis) doesn’t eat, shed or poop.

Once you’ve been flocked, you have to ante up $15 to be de-flocked. So each flocking nets the youth group $40. If you didn’t know this prior to flocking, the youths kindly leave an explanation of the process and instructions for flock exclusion (that’s critter control terminology for “removal”).

But that’s not all. For $25 you can purchase flocking insurance. That investment will assure that two dozen flamingo s do not call your lawn home.

Unless of course you’re Bob Ferguson, senior minister at Emerywood Baptist Church. Ferguson is not insurable. For $50, Ferguson’s Emerywood lawn can be flocked over and over and over again.

Under the guidance of Emerywood Baptist Church’s youth program coordinator Kathryn Griffin and youth interns Charles Smith and Ashley Church, this year’s flocking program has netted more than $1,000 — and a lot of fun.

The money will go to mission work for the youths, who range from sixth to 12th grade.

It’s just one of the creative ways these 25 or so enthusiastic kids raise money for their mission projects, which include helping with West End Ministries, Ward Street United Methodist Church, Caring Services as well as mission work within Emerywood Baptist itself.

The flocking process is as efficient as it is fun. One recent Wednesday evening, the youths met at the church for dinner, then climbed aboard the church van to pick up the two dozen flamingos that festooned the Emerywood Forest lawn of Darrell and Kathy Howard. Before you could count the birds, the avian enthusiasts were back on the bus and headed to the yard of Charlie and Mary Figeuroa off Healy Drive. They descended on this yard with semi-reckless abandon while Charlie Figeuroa stood in his doorway in disbelief.

Then sneakily, the kids headed to Emerywood to the home of none other than Bob and Debby Ferguson. Smart kids — hit the preacher’s yard while he’s at church.

This wasn’t Ferguson’s first flocking of the season. The last time the flamingos landed on Ferguson’s lawn, he took the two dozen birds hostage (i.e., he plucked them from his beautifully manicured lawn and refused — albeit briefly — to give them back to the youth).

Not to be outdone, the youth showed up en masse (masterfully blocking his driveway with the church van) and peacefully protested his imprisonment of the flamingos. Since Ferguson had to leave the house to get to an important meeting (and the church van was blocking his exit), he had to surrender the birds to the youth.
Surely he must have known this wouldn’t be his last encounter with the beautiful birds.

You don’t have to be a member of Emerywood Baptist Church to purchase a flocking — or flocking insurance for that matter. But be forewarned that flocking season is short-lived. Griffin doesn’t want to wear out a good thing.

For flocking information, call Griffin at 885-6016.

Contact Cathy Weaver at CWeaverNR@gmail.com.