How Does a Flamingo Eat?

Flamingos are pink birds with long legs. The pink and reddish coloring comes from what the flamingos eat, which is high in alpha and beta-carotene (found in carrots). Flamingos live where there is a lot of water and mud, such as lagoons or lakes, throughout the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, Africa, India, and South America. What a flamingo looks like helps them get food and breed.

Flamingos eat seeds, algae, crustaceans, and mollusks. Using their long legs and partially webbed feet, a flamingo stamps on the muddy bottom of their habitat to mix its food with the water. Then with its heads upside down, the flamingo swings its head from side to side in the water or uses its tongue to trap the food in its beak. A flamingo's beak is specially designed to filter food from the water. Its tongue pumps the food and water past the ridges on the outside of the beak and the projections, or lamellae, on the inside of the beak. The lamellae strain the food from the water. In one second, flamingos can filter about 20 beakfuls of water.

Flamingos live in large groups or colonies that can range into the thousands. They do not have a breeding season, but breeding usually begins with the onset of rain. When a colony is ready to begin breeding, the flamingos pair off and begin to build nests. Nests look like volcanoes and are made with objects on the ground such as mud, stones, and feathers. Both the male and female take turns incubating the egg until it hatches, usually between 26 to 31 days. When hatched, the chicks have gray or white feathers, a red beak, and pink legs. After about a week, the chicks leave the nest and join a group of other chicks and a few adults, called a crèche. The crèche acts as a sort of daycare. Parents know their babies by their voices and only take care of their own babies. At mealtimes, parents will find their chicks in the group and feed them a milk secretion formed by the upper digestive tract. Both males and females can produce this. The milk is red in color and is eight to nine percent protein and 15 percent fat. After about three years, the chicks' feathers turn pink. Because there is not a given period for breeding, colonies can have some flamingos raising young and others laying eggs at the same time.

References

• Flamingos
• Flamingo Facts
• Hatching and Caring of Young