In Mundomar we have a wide colony of flamingos from the species phoenicopterus ruber, which are commonly called American Flamingo or Caribbean Flamingo. They belong to the bird family phoenicopteridae. They live in tropical American areas such as the Antilles, the Yucatán Peninsula, northern Colombia and Venezuela and the Galápagos Islands.
Caribbean flamingos wade across shallow waters. They put their long neck down and eat by placing their curved bill into the water. Within their beak, different little animals are collected thanks to thin plates (called lamellas) that act as a filter when water passes through. Lakes are few and they are far away one from another, so these birds must travel long distances from one place to another and they usually do so in big flocks.
Between the months of May and August, females lay only one white egg. Both males and females incubate the egg during a period of time going from 28 to 32 days until it hatches. They will also take care of the chick until it becomes a sexually adult specimen − around six years after the hatching. The chicks’ plumage is red as adults’, but it becomes greyish a few days later. Flamingos are expected to live until they are 40 years old and so they are considered amongst the most long-lived bird species.
They can be seen in shallow lakes and in coastal areas. They are good at feeding in lakes with high concentration of salt and alkali. They feed on the sediments they find on the bottom of lakes, where waters can offer food to a great number of these birds that also eat insects, shrimps, little plants, diatomites and other waterweeds.
