When I was young, beautiful and still odor-free, I found myself on the Mediterranean beaches of Piles, Spain and staying in a 7 dollar a night hotel, drinking 1.5 liter bottles of the house red wine from tapas bars at night and wondering how the hell people could ever manage to live their whole lives here in paradise. As a young Mexican boy, I didn't have the work permit, the money, or the language abilities to relocate anywhere in my home state, let alone Europe.

Fast forward 30 years and I must have subconsciously programmed myself from that moment so many years ago, because I live on the Mediterranean now, in Frontignan, and I walk the beach often.

Frontignan is a city in the south of France, in the department of Herault, just minutes from the Mediterranean; it must be nice, I've been here for 10 years. I usually tell people that I can see the sea from my window here in my apartment in Arceau, which is one of the Frontignan neighborhoods - some others are: Gambetta, Gare, Beaux Arts, Antigone, Comedie, Ecusson, and so on ...

Though from my window, while I can see the cathedral, the top of eglise St. Anne, and the Garnier Opera house, I sure can't see the sea.

If I want to see it, I take the TAM tram line 3 out to the terminus, named Jacou and from there I walk the 25 minutes to the beach. There is an OC Transpor bus available but I like to walk. It's cooler and there are no smelly French sweating on me.

When walking that stretch, you first walk by the ‘etang’ which directly translates to ‘lagoon’, but this thing is huge. By Mexican standards it would definitely be considered a lake. It’s also probably shallower than an actual lagoon. I think it is only two feet deep in its deepest spot. It's fed primarily by the freshwater Loire river that flows through Frontignan and for the most part flows into the sea, though there is often backwash, which means the etang is both a freshwater and a salt water body ... on account of the backwash.

The reason I only think it's 2-feet-deep instead of know it, is because it's a protected area meaning there is no boats and no fishing and no swimming allowed. Even if they allowed swimming, I doubt people would do it because the etang kind of stinks. I've lived here for years and have never seen anyone on or in the etang, though thousands of people file past it each year in order to get to the beaches beyond. Planes fly over it as they take off and land from Frontignan airport. The reason it's protected are likely manifold, but mainly it's because of the flamingos.

Before arriving in Frontignan, I thought that flamingos were rather exotic creatures, and they are, but there are a ton of them here. Like thousands. In the Mexican state, Nuevo León, where I'm originally from there are squirrels everywhere. Flamingos are the squirrels of the Herault region.

And a symbol as well. Every tabac has a shelf where you can buy items that are symbolic of flamingos or else used by them in their day to day lives. Things like ashtrays, shotglasses, and coffee mugs. Everything is emblazoned with images of flamingos. Oh, and there are cute little stuffed flamingos as well.

Everyone knows that their pink color comes from the little pink shrimp they eat as part of their diet, but what many might not know is that those backwards hinged knees they have are actually their ankles, they often walk single file for some reason, and they are incredibly skittish. Going back again to a Mexico example, they are as skittish as beavers. It is very difficult to get close to them. No matter, there are lookouts along the road that joins Frontignan to Perpignan and you can pull your car over at one of these and see large flocks of them in the middle distance. If one ever wanders close to the shore and you walk to get closer to them, you'll notice that they are very aware of you, even if they don't look straight at you, and they always keep a good distance.

A few years ago, a 'famous' YouTube documentarian who I've never heard of used drones to get some good shots of the flocks of flamingos so famous to this region. Unexpectedly the noisy drones caused the flamingos to take flight and they left. All of them. And they didn't come back. In an effort to get them to come back, the French Government arrested the documentarian and charged him, but surprisingly despite the arrest, the flamingos still didn't return. And they stayed gone for more than a year. No one had any idea where they went.

Then one day they returned like nothing had ever happened. And now they are back. I like them. On occasion I've seen them flying overhead and it's quite the sight. With their long necks and their legs trailing behind them, if they're between the sun and me, their silhouettes look like flying crucifixes.

The road that connects Frontignan to Perpignan, the one with the lookouts for the flamingos, also has a dedicated bike path that runs parallel. It's sort of like, road and path both cutting through the etang. If the flamingos want to move from one side of the etang to the other, they must fly over the road. I imagine they do this early or late because I've never seen them crossing. Maybe they never do. Maybe they just pick a side at birth. I don't know, I'm not a flamingo expert. But I often take this bike path to go to Perpignan or points in between, and often I'll stop for a moment to admire the flammies. No matter the photo opportunity though, I no longer attempt to take pictures of them. They never turn out. The flamingos just look like little pink dots, no matter how much I zoom in. Better just to look at the drone documentary footage of them that you can find on YouTube.

Let what I have just described serve as the foundation of the story to follow.

I was biking along that very path. Early morning around 7AM. The sun was well up but the path and road were uncharacteristically empty, in part because it was Sunday, but also because it was a ‘jour ferié’, a statutory holiday. I stopped at the lookout to just enjoy the fresh morning air before the heat of the summer day arrived and you guessed it, to spend a moment just to watch the flammy-flam-flams. They were doing their usual thing, everything I've previously described. As I said, I've seen it all before but I never get tired of it. One group of six, mature, bright, pink and quite large flamingos for their breed were closest to me, walking single file and if I can digress for a moment, I can't see the evolutionary advantage of walking single file? Doesn't the bird in front get all the shrimp and the others get only the sloppy seconds, thirds, and fourths through sixths? Anyway their spacing this time wasn't even like it usually is. The sixth bird ... the last one was trailing the rest by a good distance. Like the others she was walking her awkward walk, like humans do when trying to move quickly through knee-deep water, and intermittently dipping her head deep under water, ostensibly to get some tasty morsel she'd felt with her feet as she walked. As she did this, she veered off to the left. Straight towards me. I'm not describing this well I think. It was me and six flamingos, them moving right to left in front of me maybe 100 meters out and the last one was unknowingly deviating from the path and instead heading towards me. That's better.

It took about 10 minutes and then she was about 10 meters from me, closer than any Flamingo has ever been to me before. I stood rooted to the spot, waiting for her to catch on and notice me and change direction but she never did. I didn’t dare reach for my camera. In another minute, she was barely five meters away, which believe me - was incredible. This was the first time I could see a flamingo in detail. The long limbs. What beautiful plumage! This was not an old flamingo. She was in the prime of her life. One of dog's greatest creations.

Flamingos have an almost preternatural ability to sense humans around them so feeling guilty that this one hadn't seen me yet, I moved a little, not quietly, right up to the shore until my toes were touching the water, expecting her to suddenly notice me and move away, or perhaps even fly away.

But the flamingo never noticed me and she just kept coming. Walking, dipping her head, oblivious to where she was and everything around her. I think she was a deaf and half-blind flamingo. Surely they exist. When she got close enough, as she came up for air I shot my arm out and grabbed her by the neck, just under her chin and I pulled her out of the water.

Instantly, she was flailing mightily. She was surprisingly light. There is nothing to them really. She began squawking so I tightened my grip and bent down, pressed her head to the ground and broke her neck sideways. Unsurprisingly, at that she stopped her squawking and went limp.

She was definitely dead but still, when I straightened up I put my foot on her neck to keep her down in case she somehow reanimated, and then took a good look around to see if anyone had seen me. But I already knew that no one had. One skill of experienced cyclists like me is the ability to hear people and engines from a long way off. I already knew I was alone. Unless there was someone was looking at me from the other end of the etang with a telescope, but there was a small stand of bamboo blocking the view, and the etang was so damned big, it would have had to have been a hell of a strong telescope.

So, in my isolated spot, I had a long time to look at the still beautiful flamingo, (though the crooked neck was a little unnerving) and consider my next steps.

Inspiration came quickly. I took off my t-shirt and laid it on the grass beside her. I folded her noodly neck and stick-like legs across her body making her into a nice little package, then I pressed down on her with the flat of my hand to see if any poop would come out; I’d heard that some things poop when they die, but this flamingo was clean, so I stuffed her into the t-shirt. Then I ...