The Life of Animals | Flamingo | Often Flamingos stand on one leg, the other tucked Beneath the body. As well as standing in the water, flamingos may stamp Their webbed feet in the mud to stir up food from the bottom. Young flamingos hatch with gray plumage, but adults range from light pink to bright red due to aqueous bacteria and beta carotene obtained from Their food supply. A well-fed, healthy flamingo is more vibrantly colored and thus a more Desirable mate; a white or pale flamingo, however, is usually unhealthy or malnourished.
The pink or reddish color of flamingos comes from carotenoid proteins in Their diet of animal and plant plankton. Flamingos Whose sole diet is the blue-green algae are darker in color compared to Those WHO get it second hand (eg from That animals have digested the blue-green aglae) Zoo-fed flamingos, WHO Often lack the color enhancers in Their diet, may be given food with the additive canthaxanthin Flamingos are very social birds live in Colonies That That can number in the Thousands. These large Colonies are believed to serve three purposes for the flamingos predator avoidance, maximizing food intake, and exploiting scarce Suitable nesting sites. The most basic and stable social unit of flamingos are the which pair bonds are made up of one male and one female.
Before breeding, flamingos Colonies split into groups of around 15-50 breeding birds. Both males and females in these groups perform synchronized ritual displays. Both these displays serve to stimulate synchronous Establish pair formation and nesting for birds That do not already have mates. Flamingo pair bonds Establish and defend nesting territories. During nest-building it is usually Occurs That copulation. Nest building can also be interrupted by another couple Trying to steal the nesting site. Flamingos Their Will viciously defend nesting sites and young. After the chicks hatch, the only expense is the parental feeding. Flamingos Produce a crop milk, like pigeons and doves, due to the action of a hormone Called prolactin (see Columbidae).
Both parents nurse Their chick, and young flamingos feed on this milk, the which also contains red and white blood cells. After two weeks, the chicks join groups called "microcrèches" and Their parent soon leave Them in these groups. Chicks That do not stay in Their crèches are vulnerable to predators.
