“What do you mean? An American or African flamingo?”
The three stages of answering this question were:
I: Laughing
Monty Python and the Holy Grail has long been one of my favorite films, so of course a reference to it is going to elicit delight from me. I’ve come close to dying from laughter every time I’ve seen it.
II: Examination
Taking the time to answer this question finally afforded me the opportunity to understand what it was the Bridgekeeper was asking. For the longest time it had been my assumption that Arthur, King of the Britons had sidestepped quite the complicated question by asking whether the swallow was supposed to be African or European. I laughed all those times I’d watched it because the question itself had sounded funny and because the phrasing tricked me into thinking the information the Bridgekeeper had requested required equations relegated to advanced trigonometrical black magic if Arthur, King of the Britons had actually been in need of the answer. Not so! All Arthur, King of the Britons had been asked was how fast a swallow goes when it’s flying freely.
So:
How fast does a flamingo go when flying freely?
III: Research/Discovery
“Do flamingos fly?”
I had no idea.
A few moments spent on everyone’s favorite search engine told me not only that flamingos fly, but that their average speed when they do is ~35mph and that they can fly up to 375 miles in just one night.
Amazing.
With care,
~ Grigori