In the photos below we have two different species - greater and lesser - of flamingo. The lesser flamingo is slightly smaller than the greater flamingo, although the most obvious trait used to differentiate them is the beak - lesser flamingoes have almost completely black beaks, while the beak of the greater flamingo has only a black tip.
The lake itself is highly alkaline, and as such contains a huge amount of algae - enough to support thousands of animals. Everywhere you look the lake shallows are covered with birds.
The flamingoes at the lake are slightly less colourful than others I have seen in zoos over the years but no less impressive. (A flamingo's colouring depends on it's diet and zoo-bound flamingoes are often given the additive canthaxanthin, which is also often given to farmed salmon.)
huge birds pictures
huge birds pictures
huge birds pictures
huge birds pictures
That is, in a given moment, the bulk of the birds are at the same breeding stage, e.g. rearing small chicks. This synchrony seems to be a manifestation of the “harmony of the colonies”, but a computer simulation model suggests that it may be the outcome of birds being adaptively scared of their neighbours.
Colonial breeding synchrony has attracted the attention of bird biologists from long ago, and a typical question that they have tried to answer is WHY do colonies synchronize? In other words, why breeding synchrony is adaptive? Answers to this question Breeding in synchrony with neighbours is known to be advantangous to individuals by reducing egg and chick losses because of deliverate and accidental killing by conspecifics. Our hypothesis was that neighbours breed in synchrony because reciprocally modulate their stress level, and females do not start reproduction until a certain security (a certain low level of agitation of neighbours) is reached. The whole colony would synchronise as the inevitable outcome of the propagation of this process throughout the network of interactions within the colony.
