A Flamingo Nest in Florida’s Everglades

Flamingos are often a pink lawn ornament in Florida, but the birds have never really nested there in large numbers. So when Jerry Lorenz, state research director for Audubon Florida, peered into his binoculars and spotted 16 of them at the Everglades, it was a very special sight.

Lorenz was able to watch them at a wetland center called Flamingo Springs. It’s a place where the flamingos gather at set times each day, and over time, form selectively stable friendships that may last for decades. He says that when they come to the wetland center, it’s like a second home to them.

The flamingos are very social birds, living in groups that can be a few pairs or sometimes tens of thousands. They’re also very ritualistic in their behavior. For example, they do a head-flagging display by raising their heads and turning them from side to side in a synchronized movement. That’s to encourage their chicks to breed by stimulating hormone production. And they also preen themselves, by dipping their wings and necks into the water. This helps them get rid of any parasites.

As for their nests, they’re usually made of mud, which the flamingos dig using their bills and a small shovel, then cover with twigs. Unlike some other bird species, flamingos typically lay only one egg, which is larger than chicken eggs and chalky white when first laid. It takes about 27 to 31 days for the egg to hatch.

In the wild, flamingos live in a variety of habitats from desert to wetland. But they tend to return year after year to their most populous breeding site, Lake Natron in Tanzania. That’s because the birds need just the right conditions to thrive. Water levels have to be low enough that they can nest and raise their young. But if they’re too high, their nests can get flooded. And the water must also be clear enough to prevent avian botulism, an intestinal infection that’s deadly for flamingos.

For these reasons, conservationists are putting all their eggs into just six of the species’ breeding sites worldwide. So when a drought sent water levels at the Kamfers Dam reservoir in South Africa tumbling, they knew it was a dire situation.

Luckily, a group of 10 local conservation organizations agreed to take in hundreds of flamingo chicks. And organizations around the world with experience raising flamingos, including many zoos in the United States, sent resources and supplies. And individuals, like Teri Grendzinski, who raised about a thousand chicks at the SANCCOB wildlife sanctuary in South Africa, volunteered to help. The efforts helped to save this year’s flamingo chick crop. But if the infrastructure issues at the Kamfers Dam breeding site aren’t resolved, it could spell trouble for the flamingo population as a whole. This year’s rescue operation was a fluke event, but multiple breeding catastrophes at the same site in consecutive years would threaten the entire species. That’s why conservationists are so focused on making sure the facility gets back on its feet.