Flamingoes at the zoo. The kind we have at our zoo here in Borås is the African Greater Flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus. From the zoo’s website I learn that flamingoes get rather old compared to most birds – while in the wild it is common for them to live at least 30 years, in a zoo they can live to be 80. The oldest one at our zoo is over 40 years old. The grey one I understand to be a young one, though - not yet having attained the pink colour.
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14 comments:
OH, wonderful and beautiful! Your first picture, they look like beautiful giant flowers. I like seeing the ones cleaning their feet and legs too. I know they like mud flats, so maybe they want their pretty pink to stay pretty. I have heard that the shade of pink depends on what they eat.
P.S. I didn't know the young ones had to wait to get pink!
lovely reflections in pink!
My first thought was "You have flamingoes in your park?" but you explained that one. I had no idea they lived so long nor that young one's weren't pink. No one can say (with justification) that blogging isn't educational.
They are really beautiful and I love the gray one. My favorite photo is the second one because of the ripples coming out from the beautiful legs of that flamingo. I knew they looked a little different than ours glad you said they are the African once
I have heard that too, Ginny. I'm not sure what exactly ours get fed, though!
I did not know either, Graham, until I looked it up for this post. The blessings of blogging often go both ways! (i.e. sometimes it makes us look up things which we might otherwise not have got round to, even in these easy-access days of googling and whatnot)
Sandra, at first I wondered if the grey one was a different kind of bird. But I read up on it when I got home :)
They live so long? I didn't know that, thank you! Like you said in your reply to Graham, it's often the blogger just as much as the reader who learns something from writing a post :-)
Have you noticed that flamingoes are/have been all the rage in fashion this spring/summer? Whereever I looked, I saw flamingoes printed or embroidered onto dresses, scarves and blouses, purses and bags. Not my type of pattern, I must admit, and I do not own a single flamingo item :-)
We have flamingos at the zoo in Atlanta. I also had no idea how long they could live. That is a wonder.
Very pretty. The top picture makes them somehow look as if they are made out of pink shells to me.
Meike, I haven't noticed any flamingo fashion here this season - but I haven't really been out shopping all that much. I think I may have had a pair of socks once with flamingos on them... They might still be at the back of a drawer somewhere, not sure!
I did not know before either, Kay. I agree!
Jenny, it's hard with my little camera to zoom in and get good pictures of them when they're out in the water like that...
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