These famous pink birds can be found in warm, watery regions on many continents. They favor environments like estuaries and saline or alkaline lakes. Considering their appearance, flamingos are surprisingly fluid swimmers, but really thrive on the extensive mud flats where they breed and feed.
Greater flamingos are likely to be the only tall, pink bird in any given locale. They also have long, lean, curved necks and black-tipped bills with a distinctive downward bend.
Their bent bills allow them to feed on small organisms—plankton, tiny fish, fly larvae, and the like. In muddy flats or shallow water, they use their long legs and webbed feet to stir up the bottom. They then bury their bills, or even their entire heads, and suck up both mud and water to access the tasty morsels within. A flamingo's beak has a filterlike structure to remove food from the water before the liquid is expelled.
Shrimplike crustaceans are responsible for the flamingo's pink color. The birds pale in captivity unless their diet is supplemented.
Greater flamingos live and feed in groups called flocks or colonies. They find safety in numbers, which helps to protect individual birds from predators while their heads are down in the mud. Greater flamingos also breed while gathered in groups. Once mating is complete, a pair takes turns incubating their single egg. Young flamingos are born gray and white and do not turn pink for two years. In years when wetlands and pools are dry and food scarce, flamingoes may not breed.
The Greater Flamingo occurs in West Africa throughout the Mediterranean to the Southwest and South Asia, and throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Iran, Kazakhstan and the Middle East.
Greater flamingos are one of the world’s most iconic avian species and raising awareness of this unique species is important. Learn about greater flamingo habitat, diet, and breeding, and potential threats facing these beautiful birds.
Greater flamingos are the largest of the six flamingo species and the most widespread. Classified as “Least Concern” (LC) by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, they occur in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and southern Europe. Despite this classification, like all common species, they have little protection from development encroaching on their habitat. Their populations are being monitored, and conservation sites have been identified should the species begin to decline. Programs are underway in Europe to raise public awareness, protect breeding and feeding wetlands, and warden against disturbance.
Standing 110 – 150cm (43in – 59 in) tall and weighing 2 – 4 kg (4.4 – 8.8 lb), they are often seen feeding among smaller lesser flamingos in their African range. They are much larger, with the greatest height for lesser flamingos being 90cm. Greater flamingo plumage is pale pink with whitish-yellow eyes, and the bill is narrow and pink, with a distinct black tip. In contrast, lesser flamingos have a very dark deep bill and red eyes. Both species have red legs and black flight feathers, which are largely hidden if the wings are folded, and the wings have deeper salmon coloured feathers that are most obvious in flight. Greater flamingos have a wingspan of 1.4 and 1.7 metres and fly with outstretched necks and legs extended behind. Chicks are born with grey plumage and take two to three years to develop adult plumage.
Like all flamingo species, the greater flamingo lives and feeds on highly alkaline soda lakes, coastal lagoons, and mudflats. Gathering in flocks that may vary from a dozen birds to thousands, the birds move in unison when threatened as this behaviour helps to protect them from predators, especially when their heads are submerged while feeding. Birds in cooler areas will migrate to warmer areas in winter. Threats to their survival include contamination of their habitat and water sources by bacteria and toxins from industrial runoff and disturbance of their nesting sites.
All flamingos are filter feeders, sucking water through their bills to trap algae, shrimp, small crustaceans, molluscs, and tiny fish. Wading in shallow water, greater flamingos use their feet to stir up the mud containing potential food. Their bill, containing thousands of rigid microscopic plates known as lamellae, is used upside down to filter the water stirred up by their feet. Their diet is rich in alpha and beta carotenoid pigments, which, when digested, are deposited into the skin and feathers resulting in pink colouration. Birds with deficient diets will lose their pink plumage, skin and beak colour, and birds feeding chicks will often be paler in colour.
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