FLAMINGOES 



171 



FLAMINGO 

 Phoenicopteriis ruber LiiiiKrus 



A. (), V. .\ umber 182 



Other Names. — Scarlet Flamingo : American I-'Ia- 

 min.yi' 



Description. — Adui.t.s : Plumage, scarlet ; primaries 

 and must secondaries, black legs, lake red ; bill, black on 

 end. orange in middle, base and bare skin of head, 

 yellow. This perfect plumage rare; birds as usually 

 seen are mostly dull pink with vermilion and scarlet only 

 on wings. YoL'XG : The young are hatched in white 

 down with a straight bill, which gradually acquires the 

 crook. First plumage, grayish-white with dusky wings ; 

 this i)asses through pink. rosy, and red to its full scarlet. 



several years being required to perfect the plumage. 

 Length of adult, 4 feet. 



Nest and Eggs.— Nest : A conical structure on 

 remote inaccessible islands, of mud or marl scraped up 

 by the bird's bill, about 18 inches in diameter at the 

 base and about a foot across the top ; from a few 

 inches to more than a foot high. Ecgs : i or 2, white. 



Distribution.— Atlantic coast of subtroiiical and 

 tropical .\merica, from the Bahamas. Florida Keys, 

 and Yucatan to Brazil, and in the Galapagos; accidental 

 in South Carolina. 



Tlie great Scarlet Flamingo is a rare bird 111 

 the United States. Occasionally a few are seen 

 at the extreme southern end of Florida and there 

 was undoubtedly a time, manv years ago, when 

 they bred in that region. I saw a specimen at 

 Palm lieach in 1908 that had been recently killed 

 near there, but they probably never wander much 

 north of this point. They frecjuent shallow la- 

 goons or flooded mud flats, and are usually found 

 in flocks. 



In 1904 Dr. Frank M. Chapman found and 

 studied a colony of perhaps two thotisand pairs 

 that were nesting on the island of Andros in the 

 Bahama Islands. His intimate photographic 

 studies rnade at this time were the greatest orni- 

 thological trium])h in bird photography that 

 had then been attained. It may be added that 

 his ]niblished notes constitute practically all we 

 know today of the nesting habits of this bird. 

 The nests in this Flamingo city, he tells us. were 

 pillars of dried mud, a foot or more in height, 

 that had been scraped up by the birds from the 

 immediate vicinity. 



(^)n each of these one white chalky eg'^ was 

 laid. While incubating, the old birds do not sit 

 astride the nest as shown in many old illustra- 

 tions, but double their legs under them. There 

 was no cover in the way of trees or bushes for 

 a long distance, but here on the semi-flooded, 

 marl-covered plain the birds were fairly secure 

 from human intrusion, as the region was isolated 

 and particularly difficult to approach. 



Upon first entering his jihotographic blind 

 which he had erected near the field of Flamin- 

 goes' nests. Dr. Chapman had grave ajiprehen- 

 sions as to whether the birds, all of which had 

 flown to a distance, wotdd return to their eggs. 



In Caiiif^s and Cruises of an Ornitlwlocjist he 

 tells us something of their behavior, when, after 

 his companion had departed from the neigbor- 

 hood, he crouched in his blind and waited. 



Drawing by Henry Thurston 



FLAMINGOES ( ,', nat. size) 

 Rare birds in the United States 



" Without further delay, the birds returned to 

 their homes. They came on foot, a great red 

 cohort marching steadily toward itie. I felt like 

 a s])y in an enemy's camp. Might not at least 

 one [)air of the nearly four thousand eyes detect 

 something imnatiiral in the newly grown bush 



