Cold War and the Nazi Party

Feeding

American flamingo and offspring: The arcuate (curved) bill is well adapted to bottom scooping.

Flamingos filter-feed on brine shrimp and blue-green algae as well as larva, small insects, mollusks and
crustaceans making them omnivores. Their bills are specially adapted to separate mud and silt from the
food they eat, and are uniquely used upside-down. The filtering of food items is assisted by hairy
structures called lamellae, which line the mandibles, and the large, rough-surfaced tongue. The pink or
reddish color of flamingos comes from carotenoids in their diet of animal and plant plankton. American
flamingos are a brighter red color because of the beta carotene availability in their food while the lesser
flamingos are a paler pink due to ingesting a smaller amount of this pigment (39). These carotenoids are
broken down into pigments by liver enzymes.[22] The source of this varies by species, and affects the
saturation of color. Flamingos whose sole diet is blue-green algae are darker in color compared to those
which get it second-hand (e.g. from animals that have digested blue-green algae).[23]

Lifecycle

Chilean flamingo feeding its young

Colony of flamingos at Lake Nakuru

Flamingos are very social birds; they live in colonies whose population can number in the thousands.
These large colonies are believed to serve three purposes for the flamingos: avoiding predators,
maximizing food intake, and using scarce suitable nesting sites more efficiently.[24] Before breeding,
flamingo colonies split into breeding groups of about 15 to 50 birds. Both males and females in these
groups perform synchronized ritual displays.[25] The members of a group stand together and display to
each other by stretching their necks upwards, then uttering calls while head-flagging, and then flapping
their wings.[26] The displays do not seem to be directed towards an individual, but instead occur
randomly.[26] These displays stimulate "synchronous nesting" (see below) and help pair up those birds
that do not already have mates.[25]

Flamingos form strong pair bonds, although in larger colonies, flamingos sometimes change mates,
presumably because more mates are available to choose.[27] Flamingo pairs establish and defend
nesting territories. They locate a suitable spot on the mudflat to build a nest (the spot is usually chosen
by the female).[26] Copulation usually occurs during nest building, which is sometimes interrupted by
another flamingo pair trying to commandeer the nesting site for their own use. Flamingos aggressively
defend their nesting sites. Both the male and the female contribute to building the nest, and to
defending the nest and egg.[28] Occasional same-sex pairs have been reported.[29]

After the chicks hatch, the only parental expense is feeding.[30] Both the male and the female feed their
chicks with a kind of crop milk, produced in glands lining the whole of the upper digestive tract (not just
the crop). Production is stimulated by the hormone prolactin. The milk contains fat, protein, and red and
white blood cells. (Pigeons and doves—Columbidae—also produce a crop milk (just in the glands lining
the crop), which contains less fat and more protein than flamingo crop milk.)[31]

For the first six days after the chicks hatch, the adults and chicks stay in the nesting sites. At around 7–
12 days old, the chicks begin to move out of their nests and explore their surroundings. When they are
two weeks old, the chicks congregate in groups, called "microcrèches", and their parents leave them
alone. After a while, the microcrèches merge into "crèches" containing thousands of chicks. Chicks that
do not stay in their crèches are vulnerable to predators.[32