‘Pretty Flamingo’
SOME of us may well remember the catchy pop song ‘Pretty Flamingo’, sung by Manfred Mann and his group in 1966. For many a year I have taken a brief late summer’s holiday in Provence, Southern France, especially famed for its fields of lavender and sunflowers. For me, no holiday there is without a long weekend spent in the Camargue National Park amongst the marshlands and etangs (lakes) of the River Rhone delta as it enters the Mediterranean Sea. My highlight there is to see thousands of red/pink flamingos for, as the pop song goes, they “brighten up the neighbourhood” and I even find myself humming that tune.
Interestingly, the word flamingo is derived from the French Provencal term ‘flamenc’ meaning flame. In Spanish it is known as ‘flamengo’ or flame-coloured. No doubt the exhausting dance, ‘the flamenco’ is of the same origin where, in Spain, female dancers wear long, flame-red dresses.
In October 2006, I spent a month in Kenya visiting an old school friend who had settled there. Travelling across the Great Rift Valley to the west of Nairobi, I visited three famous lakes – Naivasha, Elmentaita, and Nakuru. It was at Naivasha that I paused to marvel at hundreds of Lesser flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor) mixed amongst Greater flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) all strutting in the shallow briny waters of the foreshore. I still have a few rose coloured feathers that I collected from the salt flats there.
In the early 1950s, Lake Elmentaita, located between the two other aforementioned lakes, was known as ‘the pink lake’ for so dense was the concentration of visiting Greater and Lesser Flamingo populations. In 1962, the ‘wonder fish’, tilapia, were introduced to the lake to provide protein for the local people but, almost immediately, the flamingo population began to fall. Why? The fish attracted an influx of fish-eating birds, which also fed on flamingo eggs and chicks.
Changes in agricultural practices in abstracting irrigation water from the rivers feeding the lake, plus deforestation of the lake’s river catchment areas has resulted in 85 per cent of the lake drying up. Thus, in 2006, I did not see a single flamingo there and instead I witnessed cracked salt flats. The flamingos had moved to Lake Natron in nearby Tanzania.
Today, there are six species of flamingo in the world and 10 extinct prehistoric species have so far been recorded. It appears from fossil evidence that flamingos have been in existence for the last 30 million years. Ancient Romans considered a plate of flamingo tongues as a delicacy and ancient Peruvians depicted these birds in their native artwork. Today the Bahamas has declared the flamingo as its national bird. Greater Flamingo This species along with the Lesser Flamingo are referred to as the Old World species as opposed to the four other flamingo species of the New World. The latter are found in Caribbean and South American countries, including at altitude in the Andes mountain chain. The Greater Flamingo has a wide distribution in parts of North Africa, southern Europe and in South and Southwest Asia. Characteristic features As its name implies, the Greater Flamingo is the tallest species standing at a height of 1.18 to 1.43 metres and weighing up to 3.5kg compared to the Lesser Flamingo, which is on average 0.8 metres tall and 2.5kg in weight. The Greater Flamingo’s wingspan is as much as 1.5 metres. Distinctive by their long legs and purposeful strutting motion, allowing their webbed feet to be seen as thy lift their feet out of the water, the reason for their characteristic one-legged stance continues to baffle zoologists and ornithologists. To see an overhead flight of flamingos is a sight to behold as their long wings often beat in unison with the whole flock moving at the same speed like a squadron of fighter aircraft. Diet Essentially these birds are omnivorous, feeding through a filter system, in scooping up, with their curved black tipped beaks, shrimps, blue-green algae, larva, insects, crustaceans, and molluscs. Their upside-down form of eating from a shallow lake or riverbed inevitably means that silt is scooped up but this is filtered out by fine hairs in the flamingo’s beak. Their diet determines their red/pink colouration, which is derived from carotene in animal and plant plankton, minute shrimp, and blue-green algae respectively. The Lesser Flamingo devours smaller amounts of this pigment and thus is a pale pink in colour. The pigmentation is produced by the breakdown of carotenoids by the enzymes in the flamingo’s liver. Breeding and nestlings Living in colonies of up to several thousand birds there is strength in numbers against would be predators. Before breeding the colony splits up into breeding groups of about 50 birds. In East Africa, the colonies have been seen to number over one million birds hence the once ‘pink lake’ of Lake Elementaita.
Flamingos tend to pair for life, together building a nest out of mud, stones and feathers on mudflats above the seasonal high water marks. Usually a solitary egg, slightly larger than that of a chicken, is laid and both parents take turns to incubate and search for food. Incubation lasts for about a month.
The hatchling weighs between 73 to 90 grams and is fed in turn by both its parents, who produce a type of crop milk containing fat, protein and blood cells. After a week or so, a hatchling ventures beyond its nest in its exploration of its surroundings. A week later it will congregate with other chicks to create a micro crèche. This assembly will eventually merge into a crèche housing several thousand chicks. Within six weeks after hatching, a chick is fully fledged and ready to make its own way in life. Flamingos reach maturity when three to five years old, and may live between 20 and 30 years old in the wild.
Most species of flamingo are migratory birds accumulating at breeding time usually at the same place annually whilst on their migratory flight paths. In the case of the Camargue flamingos, as winter approaches they fly south across the Mediterranean Sea to warmer North African climes. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, no flamingo species is currently under threat.
In the Camargue, the Greater Flamingo is a nationally protected bird with heavy fines and imprisonment imposed on unscrupulous people with shotguns or nest robbers. If only all flamingos were accorded with such respect and reverence worldwide as they are on the Provencal salt flats and their etangs. Climate change, in due course, will see quite a change too in the migratory flight paths of these magnificent birds.