The Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis) is a large bird from South America.
The Chilean Flamingo has a pink body with darker pink wing feathers. It has greyish legs with pink knees and joints. Its downward-curved beak is cream and black. Its neck is long and S-shaped.
Chilean Flamingo
It grows to 110-130 centimetres (43-51 inches) tall.
The Chilean Flamingo is from South America, from Ecuador and Peru to Chile and Argentina. It is a wetlands bird, living near calm-water lakes, lagoons, mudflats, estuaries, and ponds.
It feeds on algae and plankton, and also shrimp, insects, and snails. Its beak has comb-like structures (instead of teeth, because birds don’t have teeth) that enable it to filter food from the water.
The Chilean flamingo lives in large flocks. Females lay a single white egg in a mud nest, which males and females build together. Both males and females sit on the egg (incubate it) until it hatches.
The chick has grey feathers, and does not gain the pink adult colour for 2-3 years. Both male and female flamingoes produce a nutritious milk-like substance in their crop gland to feed the chick.
Chilean Flamingo
Chilean Flamingo
Chilean Flamingo
Chilean Flamingo
Chilean Flamingo
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM