Flamingo - A slender long necked, pink beautiful bird, with curved
beak. That's the picture comes to our mind when we hear "Flamingo".
In my childhood, I used to see them in the wildlife documentaries
tele-casted very rarely in Doordharshan, on Sundays. Apart from its beauty,
their courtship display dance was fascinating. The bird was always admirable
and I always had Flamingo in my wish list.
First time, I saw this bird in a zoo. There were Zebras, Giraffes,
Rhinos, and so many other animals. I thought Flamingo is also a
"foreign" animal. And, I thought the only way to see this magnificent
bird is in a zoo.
It was a pleasant surprise to me that later I understood Flamingos are
here in India too. I thought one day, I will see them in their natural
habitat.
Last winter, I planned to visit Little Rann of Kutch with my friend
Shreeram, just to see the Flamingos. My expectation was, I might see Flamingos,
may be 20-30 birds. But the scene in LRK I witnessed was a shock to me. I was seeing
thousands and thousands of Greater & Lesser Flamingos all grazing together.
Little Rann of Kutch is the biggest breeding ground for flamingos in India.
India homes Greater Flamingos and Lesser Flamingos.
On the first day evening safari, when I saw the flamingos for the first
time, I wanted to get a decent picture of the bird. Getting to a close range
was really a challenge, because of the loose mud, as well as the flamingos
ensured the distance between us and them be the same, whatever plans we did and
how closer we go. We managed to make few photographs of the beautiful birds. We
visited the breeding grounds on our last day’s morning safari as well. This
time, after a few clicks, we just sat down near the water, with cameras off. We
sat down near the breeding ground and spent around 2 hours just watching the
flamingos. It was an out of the world experience – sitting in the vast dry
lands of Rann, just watching the beautiful flamingos, and observing their
activities. After 2 hours, we got up and walked towards the jeep. Surprisingly,
two juvenile Greater Flamingos started walking with one of us to some distance.
They were no more scared or shy and were very comfortable with us.
Apart from LRK, Flamingos are found in Pulicat Lake in Andhra Pradesh,
Chilka in Odisha, and some Coastal regions of Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh.
Some
of the highlights or facts about Greater
Flamingos:
- The Greater Flamingo is the most widespread species of the flamingo
family.
- This is the largest species of flamingo
- Like all flamingos, this species lays a single chalky-white egg on a
mud mound.
- Male and female birds build the nest together
- A single egg is incubated alternately by both parents for four weeks
- The chick is fed on regurgitated liquid called crop-milk till a
month.
- The chick joins other young birds in a group called a creche, taking
10 weeks to fledge.
- Young birds are grayish brown in color and gradually become white and
pink
- They attain their full adult plumage at three to four years of age.
- Flamingo young are born with a straight bill. The bill gradually
curves downward as it matures.
- The flamingo uses its specially adapted bill to capture and filter
its food.
- The pink coloration comes from the carotenoid pigments in the
organisms that live in their feeding grounds
- The greater flamingo is a highly social species, nesting in large,
dense colonies, often numbering as many as 20,000 pairs, or exceptionally up to
200,000 pairs.
- Other than using freshwater inlets for bathing
and drinking, the greater flamingo rarely inhabits areas of freshwater.
The greater flamingo is particular about its choice of habitat. It
needs shallow, very salty lagoons and lakes in which to fed and breed
successfully. The flamingo dislikes disturbance, particularly at breeding
times, and will often seek out larger expanses of water for solitude.
Greater Flamingo In winter, the northernmost
colonies of greater flamingos in Asia will migrate south to the warmer coastal
areas of India.
The flamingo is part of the world’s food chain and if it goes then many
other animals would be affected. The shrimp and krill’s population will
increase because they won’t be eaten as much which means in some lakes, lagoons
and wetlands there will be hundreds. That means the plankton that they eat will
die out in that water. This means that the waters purity would be affected
(because plankton cleans it) which would affect all the other animals etc, etc.
Also the predators survived by flamingos will be affected. The whole food chain
will be disturbed and eventually it will lead to humans so we have to make
sure no animal gets extinct.
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