Caribbean Flamingo

Flamingos eat a variety of foods, including small crustaceans, fish, algae, brine shrimp, and other tiny invertebrates. They eat food by filtering through their bills, which means they might also eat some vegetation. Even though they can eat many different things, the small crustaceans give flamingos their bright pink color.

At the Zoo, they are offered a specially formulated flamingo pellet, frozen brine, mysis shrimp, krill, plankton, fresh shrimp, and lake smelt. 

The American flamingo is found along the northern coastlines of South America, the Caribbean, the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and the southern coast of the United States. A small population is also found on the Galapagos islands.

They usually live in large mud flats close to places where they can find food. In these areas, they can easily make nests by shaping loose mud into mounds. They prefer to live in hyper-saline estuaries, which are coastal areas that are partly surrounded by land and have saltier water than the ocean around them. In these environments, filter feeders have less competition and fewer predators while enjoying plenty of food. These habitats are usually found near larger water bodies like coastlines, sea inlets, rivers, and lakes. Even though they mostly stay near the coast, they sometimes move inland to lagoons or volcanic lakes.

Predators include crocodiles, gulls, vultures, foxes, raccoons, and wild boar.

Flamingos live in specific habitats and have unique nesting habits, making them vulnerable to habitat changes and loss. Because colonies feed in large groups, specific populations can be affected by contaminated food sources or feeding grounds. Human activities near the shorelines where flamingos prefer to live can interfere with their nesting and how well they raise their young.

Flamingos are large birds with long, bright pink legs and webbed feet that help them wade in water. They have long necks and small heads, with pale eyes and bills that are mostly pale but have pink and black tips.

Their unique bills are adapted for filter feeding. Bent abruptly at the midpoint, the front upper surface of the bill faces forward. When the bird's head is upside down for feeding, the upper beak ends up on the bottom. This lets the flamingo skim or scrape the muddy bottom for food. It uses a muscle in its tongue to suck in water while filtering out tiny food particles through special membranes along the edges of its bill.

Adult flamingos have mostly pink feathers, but their black flight feathers only show when they are flying. The bright red color of their feathers comes from carotenoid pigments found in the crustaceans and food they eat. When flamingos are born, they are covered in soft, downy feathers, and their legs and bills are dark gray. As they grow, both their legs and bills turn pink. Their feathers also start out gray and change to pink as they age and consume more carotenoids in their diet. Flamingos usually reach maturity in about three years, but some may still have juvenile feathers even at five years old.

Nesting for flamingos depends on how much it rains and how that affects their food supply. They do not necessarily have a specific breeding season, and can lay eggs at any time throughout the year. After mating, both the male and female flamingo work together to build a nest. They use their bills to scoop up mud to create it, forming a mound that is at least twelve inches high. This kind of nest helps protect the eggs from flooding and keeps them safe from the intense heat near the ground.

Flamingos usually lay just one egg each year, and both parents take turns incubating it for about a month. When the chick hatches, it is covered in soft white or gray feathers and stays in the nest for five to eight days. For the first couple of months, the chick is fed a special food called "crop milk," which both parents produce. This milk has a similar nutritional value to that of mammals but is red because of the pigments in the flamingos’ diet. These pigments will eventually color the chick's feathers, which is the first step in developing the bright pink color of adult flamingos.

About four weeks after hatching, the chick’s downy feathers start turning dark gray. In six to ten months, these feathers will be replaced by the regular pink feathers. Until the chick can find food on its own, its parents continue to feed it. At first, the chick's bill is straight, but it starts to change shape into the unique curved form that flamingos have within the first two weeks. Fledging, or when the chick starts flying, happens between nine and thirteen weeks after hatching. Flamingos reach sexual maturity between the ages of three and five years.

Flamingos mainly communicate through vocalizations and sounds. When they fly, they make loud honking noises, but their sounds are softer on land. Flamingo chicks start making noises even before they hatch, a behavior called imprinting. This means the parents can learn to recognize their chicks' unique sounds while still in the eggs and keep identifying them afterward.

Flamingos also use their bodies to communicate, especially when showing dominance within the flock. For example, if a flamingo ruffles its feathers, it looks larger and more threatening to others. In fights, flamingos might perform a display where they threaten one another by moving their heads and necks around while snapping their bills together to make a clicking sound. This is called "bill fencing," and it continues until one bird decides to back off. When it comes to attracting mates, both male and female flamingos participate in courtship displays that involve special movements and postures performed back and forth.

Flamingos will often rest their head on their body in order to avoid fatigue in the neck muscles.

In flight, flamingos are very recognizable by their continuous rapid flapping reaching speeds of 31 to 37 miles per hour. The very long legs stretch far out behind, and the neck is stretched straight forward.