An exhibition on the bank of Municky pond, at the rear part of the Zoo, will attract the attention of the visitors, it is an imposing group of pink birds with long necks and long legs. The present flock of Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber roseus) has been bred here from July 2001, then we bought from Farmy Aves thirty eight birds, these birds came from a catch in Tanzania. A single flamingo had appeared in the past for short time in the exhibition area of Ohrada ZOO. He was obtained at the beginning of the eighties by an unusual way; he was caught here in the countryside. It was the Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis). Due to the birds’ way of life, one bird wasn’t very interesting for the zoo; therefore later he was exchanged for other birds from the Dvůr Králové Zoo. Flamingos are bred in several other zoological gardens, where on the whole their breeding is successful.
They are one of the oldest groups of birds, the remains of their fossils are known to us from the period 30 million years ago. Order Phoenicopteriformes comprises of one family of Phoenicopteridae with five kinds. Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis) is found extensively in South America from the centre of Peru into Tierra del Fuego. The Lesser Flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor) can be found in East and South Africa and in Northwest India. It is the most numerous kind of flamingos.
Andean Flamingo (Phoenicoparrus andinusi) lives exclusively on high altitude salt lakes in the Andes from South Peru to North Chile. Also Puna Flamingo (Phoenicoparrus jamesi) lives there. The biggest flamingo is the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), this bird lives in central and South Asia, Africa and central and North America. Its sub-species Phoenicopterus ruber roseus reaches even into South Europe. The most famous colony is in Camargue in South of France, others can be found in Spain and Sardinia. Only exceptionally will some individuals fly further north. Sometimes they have been found even in our country.
Flamingos can be found on shallow lakes and lagoons which have strong alkaline even very salty water, where great number of seaweed, diatoms and invertebrates can be found. They can catch these small particles of food with the help of a strong, bent, gilled beak, which is used for filtering the food, and long legs which enable him to move even in deeper water and stir up the mud. The beaks ridge faces downward; he moves it quickly from side to side and the slit between the jaws sieves the water through. An important sign of all flamingos is the colouring of their feathers. It is conditioned by carotenoid pigments, which they obtain from seaweed. The colouring plays important part during mating. Flamingos are very sociable birds; they live in large colonies which consist of several thousand pairs of birds. Their vocal display is similar to that of geese. They build their nests by pushing nesting material into a cone shape, where on the top they make a hollow into which the female lays one egg. The incubation period is from 21 - 31 days. The parents feed the fledglings by secretion from their digestive tract. The nesting itself depends greatly on the weather and the changes to the water conditions.
Our flock consisted in majority of adult birds and several young, not yet fully coloured birds. After a short stay in the over wintering area for water birds, where we had to take care of some individuals that had slight injuries to their legs which they obtained during transportation, we then moved the birds into an area of natural water which is formed by part of the Municky pond. Even towards the end of the summer and in the autumn we noticed several attempts of building nests. The first winter they spent in the over wintering facility for water birds outside their run. During this time we built new glassed over winter facility with large paddling area and two feeding pools. Their accommodation is connected by a small run from which they can access a large exhibition compound on the edge of the pond. The flamingo run is protected from the outside by an electrical fence, against the entry of predators such as fox or marten, which occasionally appear in the zoo. We feed them with complete granulated food type Premium. We also add B-complex to their food. If flamingos are on the open pond water, they consume plankton which is in abundance there. We did not check the total proportion of natural food in their daily food intake; we only monitor their daily intake of granulated food. This type of feeding technique has proved good, the birds are in a very good condition and their feathers are of good quality and clean after they spend time in the over wintering facility.
We moved them into the new over wintering facility on the 4th of April 2002. The birds got used to the new home very quickly and immediately they started to build their nests by the waters edge during the month of May. The building of nests continued even in June. They took turns in the building of nests, the level of water in the pond was not stable. First of all the level of water was quite low, the birds started to build their nests right at the edge of the water surface. Later on the water level increased and several meters of the bank were flooded including the nests. We noticed several other attempts to build nests but none were completed. In September, the pond water was let out due to fishing; the birds had to be shut into a small run by their accommodation. The birds had their water in a pool inside the building, even in this area the birds found place to build their nests; they were building them in the sand in front of their accommodation. Within such small space there were numbers of skirmishes between the birds.
In the spring of 2003 we brought into the run some excavated soil from the pond and built a provisional dam. This formed a lagoon in which, during the reduction of water in the pond, the water level stayed same. In the summer heat, when the water level and natural water exchange was not possible, we pumped the water through. We pushed up some of the mud onto the shore of the bay, this continued to be damp. During May the birds started immediately to build nests from the ponds mud. There was enough material for the nest building, and the nests grew very quickly. Ten nests were completed and gradually seven pairs sat on the nests. The first eggs appeared on the 12.6, further followed on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 18th of June. Seventh egg was laid on the 21st of June. The animal keeper kept a precise record of nesting pairs and noted her observations into a drawn plan of the nests – birds apart from microchips are marked with coloured plastic rings on their leg combined with a number and a letter, this is for our own orientation. The parents rotated on the nests regularly after several hours. We didn’t carry out observations during the night. During the time when they were sitting on the eggs they resisted several strong disruptive elements. We noted a case, where during one of the frequent summer storms, a lightning hit two high oaks which were immediately within the enclosure, about 6 m away from the nesting birds. The parents remained seated; the activity did not seem to disrupt them, even though wood splinters and broken branches were thrown about in a large area surrounding them, and even on top of them.
Finally we saw on the 10th of July the hutching of the first young. It was healthy and the parents were feeding him. After hatching it was white, its legs were strong with a hint of pink; the beak was short and strong. On the 11th of July, during the changing of parents on the nest (mother was replacing the father) we saw a second pecked egg. Later on that afternoon a second young bird was hatched and little bit later we saw it being fed. 13th of July there was a third young bird in the nest and the same day in the evening a fourth bird hatched. On the 15th an egg went missing from the fifth nest at the time when it should have hatched. We do not know if it was fertilised. The birds were behaving calmly after the loss of the egg. On the 16th of July a bird hatched in the sixth nest and on the 18th the sixth the last young was hatched. On this day we saw the third young walking outside its nest. We thought it fell out, but after a while we saw it climb back in. Gradually even the other young flamingos were leaving their nests and in a moment they were returning back to them. On the 29th July the whole family was being observed in deeper water even with the young birds, they were all “sloshing” the water. The young birds were healthy and were doing well; more often they were braving the outside of their nest and were also going into the water, where they tried to look for food themselves. During this time some of the adults were building nests but none were completed.
Today the young are big as their parents, their feathers are grey-white, their legs and beak is grey. The young birds were still begging for food during December and January. The parents first of all tried to avoid them but if the young bird was persistent they fed it. The young birds accepted food together with the adults. Even during November the birds remained in the outside run, but during December strong frosts came and from that time the flamingos stayed inside the building. During the day they are in the small enclosure and doors into their accommodation remain open. During the time the pond is frozen, the birds are not let out into the outside run.
During the year we have to catch the flamingos several times due to different activities which we cannot avoid. Our flamingos do not have their wings clipped which definitely have an influence on the fertilisation of the eggs – during mating the male has better stability. On the other hand we regularly have to catch them and clip the feathers on wing feathers. Other quite large interference is the spring vaccination against botulism. In our conditions it is inevitable. Majority of our water birds, including the flamingos come into contact with the water from Municky pond, which is highly polluted due to intensive fish farming. In the past great number of water birds died annually due to botulism. After this we started to vaccinate before the nesting season, and the losses were reduced to minimum. With the flamingo we have done this vaccination from the beginning of them being here with us. We use an American preparation Botumink. Even though at first glance they look as if they do not care, this activity does not bother them, after each vaccination they are quite stressed and one or two days they do not want to eat well. Apart from some small injuries we have not come across any serious illnesses. In the spring after longer stay in the over winter accommodation we found more pressure sores on their legs. Preventively we sprinkled salt into the feeding ponds.
Young flamingos seem to do well here and we are all looking forward to the spring.
Jitka Králíčková, Jana Chrtová, ZOO Ohrada
