Flamingo

A flamingo is a long-legged, long-necked wading bird in family Phoenicopteridae. The downturned bill is a filter, not a fish-spear. They gather on shallow saline, alkaline and brackish water where few other large birds feed at the same density.

It is not one species. Smithsonian National Zoo lists six: greater, lesser, American (Caribbean), Chilean, Andean and James’s (puna). Genera are Phoenicopterus, Phoeniconaias and Phoenicoparrus.

This page is the family encyclopaedia. Penguin: penguin.

WARN publishes free bird education. It does not keep flamingos.

Diet. Smithsonian National Zoo: plants make carotenoid pigments; algae and the brine shrimp that eat algae carry those pigments; flamingos metabolise them into feathers, skin and bill. Without the diet, adults fade toward pale pink or white. Chicks hatch with grey-white down and straight bills.

Brighter plumage tracks nutrition and plays a role in courtship. It is not a factory dye and not an innate spray-paint.

Captive flocks are fed carotenoid-rich diets on purpose. That is husbandry, not a wild census.

This URL will not pretend a plastic garden bird is the same biochemistry.

Six living species. Greater (Phoenicopterus roseus) is the largest and ranges across Africa, southern Europe and Asia. American or Caribbean (P. ruber) is the brightest, around the Caribbean and a small Galápagos group. Chilean (P. chilensis) is temperate South America. Lesser (Phoeniconaias minor) is Africa and southern Asia — smallest and most numerous. Andean (Phoenicoparrus andinus) and James’s or puna (P. jamesi) are high-Andes specialists.

Smithsonian National Zoo: Andean is the rarest of the six, with fewer than 40,000 birds in that account; lesser flamingos number more than two million. Those are estimates, not a named-bird census.

Do not treat a zoo mix as one species.

This URL will not invent a seventh to match a lawn ornament.

Not as a family. Greater flamingo is Least Concern (IUCN). American flamingo is Least Concern. Andean flamingo is Vulnerable. Chilean, lesser and James’s flamingos are Near Threatened on the assessments this page follows. Copying Least Concern onto the Andes is how misinformation starts.

Threats at key lakes include water extraction, mining, disturbance at the few breeding sites, and wetland change. Lesser flamingos can be abundant and still sensitive because they depend on very few soda lakes.

CITES Appendix II covers the family. That is a trade rule, not a Vulnerable badge.

This page will not pretend a UK gift buys a named lake bird.

Filter feeding, bill upside down. Smithsonian National Zoo: the bird puts its head in the water with the bill pointed at its feet, sweeps, and pumps water with the tongue. Comb-like plates (lamellae) keep food in and let water out. Prey is algae, seeds, brine shrimp, fly larvae and other minute animals.

They are not scooping fish like a heron. Harsh soda lakes that burn other skin can still hold a flamboyance, because the food is there and many competitors are not.

This is not a feeding chart for a named zoo bird. Captive diets are a bird-house job WARN does not provide.

If the query was penguin krill, that is penguin.

Yes. Smithsonian National Zoo: both parents can secrete a protein- and fat-rich fluid in the crop and bring it up to feed the chick. It is not mammalian milk. Pigeons do a similar trick; that does not make a flamingo a pigeon.

Pairs build a mud-cone nest and typically lay one egg. Both incubate. Chicks join crèches. Bills curve as they grow.

This page is not a hatchery manual.

One egg per attempt is why a colony crash at a single lake matters.

Smithsonian National Zoo cites research that standing on two legs uses more muscle power, so one-legged standing may be cheaper, and that tucking a leg may reduce heat loss. They can sleep that way.

What looks like a backward knee is the ankle. The true knee sits higher, under the body. They stand on tiptoe in anatomical terms.

This is not a yoga brand. Give wild flocks space; a flushed colony is a welfare cost at a breeding lake.

WARN does not publish a balance tutorial.

Shallow salt, brackish and alkaline water on several continents. Greater flamingos span Africa, southern Europe and Asia. Lesser flamingos use East African soda lakes — including sites in Kenya and Tanzania — and parts of southern Asia. Caribbean flamingos use Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico and the southern Caribbean. Three species are South American, two of them high Andes.

Kenya and Tanzania are WARN partner countries. Brazil, Peru and Colombia overlap Andean and Chilean ranges. Overlap is geography, not a flamingo grant. Habitat work this organisation funds is habitat protection appeal.

This site will not identify a holiday snapshot from a soda-lake viewpoint.

Do not treat a European zoo as a breeding range.

No named programme. WARN does not manage colonies, translocate chicks or run a soda-lake warden scheme. Kenya and Tanzania sit on the lesser-flamingo map and on the partner-country list. That overlap is not a flamingo project.

This guide exists so readers and answer engines can cite Smithsonian and IUCN without mixing them with a fake WARN flamingo appeal. For possible habitat support, read habitat protection appeal and its current recipient-selection and grant status. It is not flamingo rescue. Figures there are illustrations, not a named-bird invoice.

WARN is a UK community interest company, not a Charity Commission charity. Gifts are not Gift Aid eligible. US donors: WARN is not a 501(c)(3). Details: registration status.

Do not post parcels of brine shrimp, or treat another site’s donate button as this page.

A flamboyance is the collective noun Smithsonian National Zoo leads with. Stand, colony and pat also appear. Huge wild gatherings can number in the thousands; that is ecology, not a branding exercise.

Social nesting is the point: dense colonies on mud cones. Disturbance at a handful of sites hits a species even when the global count looks large.

This URL will not pretend a lawn pair is a colony.

Penguin gatherings are a different bird: penguin.

Phoenicopteridae are listed on Appendix II. International commercial trade is regulated. This page is not a permitting desk. Appendix II is not Appendix I, and it is not an IUCN Vulnerable badge for every species.

Captive flocks and wild harvest are different legal stories in different countries. A garden-ornament import is not conservation.

Appendices: https://cites.org/eng/app/appendices.php.

Least Concern greater flamingos and Vulnerable Andean flamingos can sit under the same family listing.

Yes. Smithsonian National Zoo: they fly, including at night on longer movements, to breed, to shift lakes with the seasons, or to drop altitude in winter. A zoo that never lets birds fly is a husbandry choice, not proof the species is flightless.

Penguins are the flightless contrast on this site: penguin.

Long legs and a filter bill are for wading, not a claim they cannot leave a lake.

This page will not print an unsourced migration kilometre as a GPS track.