The end of August signals the start of the school year, and the flamingos on the corner of Kenton Trail and Carronade Drive in Perrysburg are ready with new bookbags, shoes, and glasses.
That is, until September, when they will be joined by homemade scarecrows, pumpkins, and sunflowers to welcome the fall season.
“We change them almost monthly,” said Mary McConnell, the co-owner of the flamingo display. “We pick a theme, and my family and friends will throw out ideas for us.”
Currently, the corner lot is decorated with pool noodles turned into pencils, a handmade ruler drawn on wood, and a pink eraser made out of poster board. A handmade sign reads “Back to school.”
Mrs. McConnell, 66, does all the costumes for the birds and most of the handmade craft components, but she couldn’t do it without her husband, Phil McConnell, 67, who is a retired engineer.
“He figures out how to put everything up,” Mrs. McConnell said. “He figures out how to mount them, how to stop them from blowing away.”
Mr. McConnell said the weather is the biggest deterrent. The couple is constantly figuring out new ways to keep their display sustainable.
They have lived in the neighborhood for eight years and have decorated their lawn with flamingos since they moved in, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that they started dressing them up.
“I had smaller three cute little flamingos out here, and in 2020 ... I worked in health care, so I was still working, but he was home so he put masks on the flamingos,” Mrs. McConnell said.
“After that, it’s gone a little haywire,” Mr. McConnell added.
Yet the giant pencils, erasers, and rulers are what draws attention from their neighbors.
Razan Reed, 46, has been neighbors with the couple since they moved in and said it’s always exciting to see what they are going to do next.
“We usually have a lot of people who bring their kids to walk down here and take pictures in front of it,” she said.
Ms. Reed’s kids are older now, but she said whenever they see a flamingo they think of the McConnells.
While the displays are a newer tradition, Mr. McConnell said the flamingos have followed them wherever they go. On Tuesday, the couple was decked out in flamingo-themed shirts, and Mrs. McConnell’s look was complete with flamingo shoes and earrings.
The tradition started when the couple lived in a neighborhood in Genoa where everyone had a plastic flamingo in their front yard. They would take their flamingo to the house of whoever was hosting the card party that night.
“She worked odd hours, our other neighbor worked odd hours, and they would come home at 6 or 7 in the evening and see all the flamingos in the front of the house, and they knew where we were,” Mr. McConnell said.
“And we could look and see who was there because their flamingo would be missing out of their front yard,” Mrs. McConnell added.
When the couple moved to Swanton, the flamingo came too, and when they moved to Perrysburg the pink bird was planted right out front.
“It’s all about just having fun and making people smile,” Ms. McConnell said. “That’s what it’s all about, and obviously we know that because people leave us notes. People stop and talk to us.”
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