Photograph by Aaron Logan

 

The flamingo has been called the most charismatic of all birds. With their bright pink plummage, swan-like neck and long, stick-like legs, the possess a very singular ability to simulatenously be the world’s most peculiar and beautiful birds. Because of their overwhelmingly unique physical distinctions, they also rank among the most recognizable birds.  With the addition of the flamingo’s incredible social nature, they have succeeded in captivating the public for centuries and continue to do so. More than half the world’s zoos maintain at least one species in captivity (Duplaix-Hall and Kear, 1975). Almost 7,000 flamingos were reported in a 1994 survey by 228 responding zoos (King 1995).

This website is intended to serve as a broad account of flamingo life and behavior. In order to ensure reliability of information, most of the ideas found here have been derived from published studies appearing in scientific journals.

Unfortunately, because of the flamingo’s unpredictable movements, their highly sensitive nature, the harshness and inaccessibility of their natural habitat, and their propensity to flock in extremely large populations, studies on the bird have been hindered (Studer-Thiersch 2000, King 2000). Instead, many of the most successful observations and experiments have been done on flamingos living in captivity at zoos and wildlife preserves. Therefore, it is important to understand, in comparing what is known about flamingos in the wild to those in captivity, zoo observations do not always fully reflect flamingo behavior in their natural environment. Our knowledge on flamingo behavior is constantly evolving with time as advances in science and technology enable us to more accurately draw the picture of flamingo life and behavior.