Flamingo

Setswana Name: 
Nanyane ya tladi

Scientific Name:
Phoenicopterus rubber/minor

 
Due to their extraordinary shape and striking pink colouration, flamingos are immediately recognizable.There are two types - lesser and greater flamingo. Greater flamingo is distinguished by pink bill with black tip, while lesser has evenly coloured dark maroon bill, which appears black at a distance. Lesser flamingo is smaller and pinker than the greater flamingo.
 
In proportion to their body, flamingos have longer legs and longer necks than any other birds. The long legs allow them to wade into water too deep for other birds, while the long neck allows them to take food from the mud at the bottom. They have webbed feet to prevent them from sinking into soft mud, and can swim (paddle) in any water body. The deep rosy-pink plumage of flamingos comes from carotenoid pigments - substances that are synthesized by algae which the birds consume either directly or through the small invertebrates that feed on algae.
 

Flamingos are highly gregarious and move about in large flocks. Individuals honk incessantly and march to and fro through the shallows. They may be abundant in one lake today, and then vanish overnight, not to be seen for months or even years.
 

Reproduction
When Flamingos are about six years of age they are ready to start mating. This will take place within their colony. They engage in a variety of courtship rituals in order to find their mate. Most of them are initiated by the males. These courtship rituals include marching, preening, head turning, and more. The purpose of these displays is to bring the entire flock into reproductive synchrony. By doing so, the majority of the eggs are laid at the same time. Consequently, most of the chicks hatch at a time when environmental conditions are most favorable for their survival
What is very interesting is that Flamingos don’t mate annually. Mating usually will take place when it rains. This is because the rain helps them to have supplies for building nests. It also helps to increase the food supply. Therefore when there is a drought the Flamingos are less likely to mate.
 
Once mating has occurred, the next step for the Flamingos is to create nests. This is where they will lay their eggs. They use a variety of items to create it including sticks, stones, mud, and even feathers. The nests look like small volcanoes when they are completed. Not long after the nest is done an egg is deposited by the female. The egg is very large and it is rare that more than one egg will be laid. Parents take turns incubating and protecting the egg after it is in the nest. It will take from 26 to 31 days for the offspring to be born. The offspring have feathers of gray or white. The offspring remain in their nest for about a week under the constant care of their own parents. Here they are fed a diet of crop milk that comes from the upper digestive system of both of their parents. Later they join the colony and a group of adults will care for all of the offspring.

Habitat
Flamingoes usually occur in large flocks, sometimes many thousands together. Single birds and small groups are less usual. They prefer shallow saline waters and, unless breeding, are nomadic, remaining in one place only so long as conditions are suitable. Both species can occur in large numbers at Makgadikgadi Pans, where breeding is known; elsewhere they occur as erratic visitors.
 
Food
Flamingos are filter feeders, living off algae and tiny animals such as shrimp, mollusks, and insect larvae that live in the mud at the bottom of shallow pools. Their long legs allow them to wade into deep water to forage. Their unusually shaped bill, held upside down, contains lamellae, plates that act like tiny filters to trap shrimp and other water creatures. They use their tongues to suck water in at the front of the bill and pump it out through the sides. Flamingo feathers obtain their rosy pink color from pigments in the organisms they eat. The flamingos’ feathers, legs, and face are colored by their diet, which is rich in alpha and beta carotenoid pigments.
 
Carotenoids in crustaceans such as those in the flamingo diet are frequently linked to protein molecules, and may be blue or green. After being digested, the carotenoid pigments dissolve in fats and are deposited in the growing feathers, becoming orange or pink. The amount of pigment laid down in the feathers depends on the quantity of pigment in the flamingo’s diet.
 
 

The Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in northern Botswana are one of the most important breeding sites in southern Africa for lesser flamingos Phoeniconaias minor and greater flamingos Phoenicopterus ruber roseus.  Seasonal flooding on the pans generates vast shallow wetlands, in which an abundant food supply exists. Much of flamingo migration behaviour is unknown and there has been speculation on the pattern of flamingo movements to and from Makgadikgadi and their dispersal throughout southern Africa. Satellite tracking of flamingos shows that flamingos migrate from all over southern Africa to Makgadikgadi to breed. It also shows that, during the non-breeding season, movement is widely dispersed and nomadic among a network of wetlands around the subcontinent. Small wetlands, often unrecognized as important for conservation, provide valuable feeding sites and migration staging posts along flamingo migration routes.
 
Sua Pan, the lowest part of the wetland complex, comprises one of only three sites in the whole of Africa where Lesser Flamingos breed successfully. The birds do not breed here every year due to the ephemeral nature of the pan, but when conditions are right, thousands of chicks are produced.
 
The Lesser Flamingo is the most numerous of the flamingo species, numbering 2 - 4 million. However, in the IUCN Red List of threatened species, the species is listed as “Near Threatened” across its entire range. The vulnerable status of Lesser Flamingos in southern Africa has been attributed, primarily, to the lack of breeding sites and their sensitivity to both natural and anthropogenic disturbance during breeding.