Chilean Flamingos

The Flamingos were the first birds to arrive in the Bird Garden in 1969; they were caught from the wild in Chile. Although the original Flamingos at Harewood were caught from the wild, zoos can no longer freely remove flamingos from the wild to provide interesting exhibits. There are 17 adult Flamingo’s and one juvenile bird, 7 of these are female, 10 are male and the young bird is an unknown sex.

The Flamingos at Harewood used to rear young chicks every year, until a tree blew down during a storm in 1989 on their nesting area. Although no birds were injured, they stopped breeding and for twenty years didn’t lay any eggs. The last Flamingo hatched, 28th July 1989, a male bird, which is still in the flock.

Their enclosure was landscaped in 2006 to provide a small nesting island, gentler sloping banks, a water walkway and less tree cover. The new landscaping, early rainfall followed by a warm summer, started the Flamingo’s breeding again, with a chick hatching on the 4th August 2009, twenty years after the storm blew the tree down in their enclosure.

Read more about our new arrival on our flamingo news page.

At Harewood the flamingos are checked by a vet at about a year old, have an identity leg ring put on, are micro-chipped and the sex is confirmed.

In zoos around the world there are 4,580 Chilean Flamingos as recorded being kept in captivity with only 71 chicks hatched in 2008. There are less than 200,00 left in the wild in South America and this number is decreasing, they are classed as near threatened in the IUCN Red Data List.

Scientific name: Phoenicopterus Chilensis
Other name: Tokoko (local name).
Spanish: Flamenco Chileno
Italian: Fenicottero Chilensis
Dutch: Chileense Flamingo
French: Flamant du Chili
Height: 80 cm
Wingspan: 95 -100 cm
Weight: approximately 2.5Kg
Lifespan: estimated at 50 years

Plumage

Chilean Flamingos can be distinguished from all other flamingos by their grey legs with pink knees and feet.

They have a pale pink body plumage with darker roseate streaks, pale yellow eyes and grey legs with pink knees and feet. Male and female flamingos are the same colour. When the parents are feeding their chicks, they lose some of the pink colour and get paler feathers.

Newly-hatched chicks are pure white, but as they get older they go greyer and eventually turn pink, as they moult and replace their feathers. Juveniles are greyish, taking approximately one to two years to obtain full adult coloration.

Feeding

Flamingo beaks are shaped with a bend just below the nostrils, so when the head is bent down into the water, the beak is the right angle to feed from the water surface and mud. The upper bill is thin and flat, and acts as a lid to the lower bill which is a larger trough or bowl shape. The lower bill of the Chilean flamingo is wide, so they can feed on shrimps and other mollusks in the water as well as insects, aquatic invertebrates, and small fish.

Rough ridges on the flamingo's bill and a double row of bristles called lamellae, help filter food from the water, by acting like a sieve. The Chilean flamingo's large, fleshy tongue is also covered with bristles to help filter water and food past the beaks bristles.
Food.

A flamingo's pink or reddish feathers come from carotenoid pigments, including one called canthaxanthin. These are found in the algae and shrimp that the Flamingo’s feed on, at Harewood the food contains carotenoid pigments to keep the Flamingo’s pink. This pigment also keeps the legs and skin pink as well as the feathers.

How They Collect Food

Chilean Flamingos feed by standing in shallow water, they bend down to the water so their head is upside down and their beak pointing towards their body.

Chilean Flamingos waive their head from side to side at the water level, or even under water in the mud, to sieve out food.

A flamingo filters its food out of the water and mud with a spiny, round tongue that sucks food-filled water through the bristles inside the curved bill. The bristles and ridges filter out food and water is squirted back out of the mouth into the lake.

When feeding in the lake, you can often see the Flamingo’s stamping up and down to stir up the mud and the insects that live in it.

When the water is too deep, flamingos can swim at the surface, with their webbed feet propelling them along, and they can still feed while swimming along.

Flamingo Senses

Flamingos have good hearing, calls are important and may be used to keep flocks together and for parents & chicks to recognise and find each other.

Flamingo’s can see colours, but seem to have poor night vision and can be easily startled at night.

At Harewood the flamingos recognize their uniformed keepers among visitors, often walking away from them and ignoring crowds of visitors. But distinctive regular visitors to Harewood may also start to be recognised.

The eyes are located on either side of the head, so they can see predators hunting them from behind; chicks have grey eyes which turn yellow as they get older.

Flamingo’s feel food with their tongues, but have a poorly developed sense of taste, and people think they have little or no sense of smell.

Fascinating Facts

Eight of the original Flamingo’s are still here at Harewood, they have been here for forty years, and we don’t know some of their ages, as they were caught from the wild.

They stand on one leg occasionally, this is thought to be for several reasons:

• Sleeping: When flamingos are resting they often rest standing on one leg. If it’s windy, they face towards the direction of the wind to stop the feathers being blown the wrong way, this keeps warm air trapped against their body.

• Heat saving: To keep one leg warm in winter as it’s tucked up against their warm body, and also saves body heat in cold climates.

• Collision avoidance: To avoid duck collisions, less legs on the floor reduces the chance ducks or geese will run into them.

They only lay and sit on a single egg, but if the egg is damaged or lost they can lay several more to replace lost eggs.

People think their knees bend backwards, but that’s actually their ankle halfway up the leg. What we would think to call their 'feet' are in fact toes, with their knees hidden next to their body covered by feathers.

Because the Flamingo’s live in ponds, marshes and lakes, they have long thin legs to wade in water, with webbed feet to walk on soft mud.

A newly hatched chick’s beak is straight, and then as it gets older, the curved bent beak shape the adults have, starts to develop.

In early Roman times, flamingo tongues were carefully prepared, pickled, and served as a delicacy.

The majority of lakes where flamingos live have extremely high concentrations of salt. Flamingos excrete excess salt through salt glands in their nostrils. The only source of fresh water for some of these birds comes from boiling geysers. They are capable of drinking water at temperatures that approach boiling point, and need to drink freshwater from these springs.

Range

Native in: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay.

The Chilean Flamingo Phoenicopterus chilensis is the most widespread of the South American flamingos. The Chilean Flamingo breeds in central Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and sometimes in Paraguay. Some overwinter in Uruguay and south-east Brazil, and occasionally strays into Ecuador and the Falkland Islands.

Habitat

Coastal mudflats, estuaries, lagoons and salt-lakes at elevations up to 4,500m all provide habitat for Chilean Flamingos. Flamingo breeding areas typically occur in saline habitats and islands with large mudflats. Because these conditions don’t occur every year, breeding is sporadic, at Mar Chiquita, birds bred in only nine of the 26 years to 1999 (www.iucnredlist.org).

Threats

Intensive egg-harvesting since the arrival of humans in South America - in recent years, egg-collectors have been responsible for the partial or complete failure of colonies in Bolivia.

Mar Chiquita (Argentina), perhaps the most important breeding site, is threatened by abstraction of water for irrigation projects.

Mining has wrought extensive habitat alteration.

Hunting and tourism-related disturbance.