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If you chance upon a group of crows, you’ve seen a murder. A flock of owls? That’s a parliament. But perhaps my favorite word for an aptly named collection of the same animal in one place is a flamboyance, which refers to a large number of fancily feathered flamingos flying, bathing or just simply hanging together.

Flamboyances have been making a comeback in southern Florida in recent decades, about a century after flamingo populations were decimated due to hunting. Back then, they were prized for their pink feathers, which were used to adorn women’s hats. At first, the increased flamingo sightings were considered escapees from a zoo or other captive population, writes Jerome Lorenz, an ecologist at Florida International University. Eventually he realized that flamingos appeared to be reestablishing a home in the Sunshine State.

In one of our most popular articles last week, Lorenz chronicles the 19th-century decline of Florida flamingos, the reasons behind their recent recovery and the starring role Peaches the flamingo plays in all this.