FLAMINGOES 
As A colony of rosy pink flamingoes feeds in tropical shallows, a few of 
their number stand aside, on guard duty. About every half hour the sentinels 
are changed, and such is their alertness that it is almost impossible foi a 
hunter to come within shooting distance. 
While searching for food, the bird holds its head under water, its 
crown down and turned backwards. The beak, sharply bent downward and 
equipped with a filter, is used as a sort of spoon. In this strange position, 
the flamingo stirs the mud with its long legs, dislodging crustaceans, mol- 
lusks, frogs and insects from their hiding places. Although it consumes a 
number of aquatic animals, its chief food consists of water plants. 
Flamingoes spend most of their time wading slowly and stiffly about 
the shallows, now and then emitting a loud, harsh cry. They are good swim¬ 
mers and graceful fliers, although they must gallop awkwardly through the 
mud to take off. They fly in wedge-shaped flocks, with legs and neck out¬ 
stretched. 
These birds breed in colonies on lakes and salt lagoons. Their nests 
are conical or cylindrical structures of mud, from two inches to two feet 
in height, depending on the depth of the water, and are hollowed in the 
top to receive the one or two eggs. The incubation period lasts for four 
months, male and female sharing the labor. 
The downy chicks, whose beaks, unlike those of the adult bird, are 
short and straight, run from the shell. For three or four days they remain 
in the nest, fed by the predigested juices of some mollusk eaten by their 
parents. The chicks also eat their own egg shell. 
In late summer the adult birds lose their flight feathers and are for a 
time quite helpless. 
64 
