Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS

THE FLAMINGOS (Suborder Phcenicopteri)

Flamingo Distribution

On Lake Hannington, in the eastern province of the Uganda Protectorate, Sir Harry Johnston states that”it is no exaggeration to say that there must be close upon a million Flamingos (P. minor). These birds breed on a flat plain of mud about a mile broad at the north end of the lake, where their nests, in the form of little mounds of mud, appear like innumerable mud-hills. The birds, having hitherto been entirely unmolested by man, are (mite tame. The adult bird has a body of rosy pink, the color of sunset clouds.

The beak is scarlet and purple; the legs deep rose-pink inclining to scarlet. Apparently the mature plumage is not reached until the birds are about three years old. The young Flamingos very soon attain the same size as the rosy adults; but their plumage, when they are full grown, is first gray-white and then the color of a pale tea-rose, before it attains its full sunset glory. On the north coast of the lake the belt of Flamingos must be nearly a mile broad from the edge of the lake outward. Seen from above, this mass of birds on its shoreward side is gray-white, then becomes white in the middle, and has a lakeward ring of the most exquisite rose-pink, the reason being that the birds on the outer edge of the semicircle are the young ones, while those farthest out in the lake are the oldest.

It is not an easy matter to make the birds take to flight. When they do so suddenly and the shallow water is disturbed, the stench which arises is sickening. The noise from these birds can be heard for nearly a mile.

The kronk, kronk, kronk, of the million, mingled with the hissings, squitterings, and splashings and the swish-swish-swish of those who are starting in flight, combine to make a tumult of sound in the presence of which one has to shout to one's companion to be heard. It is curious to watch the ungainly motions of these birds when they wish to rise in the air. Their flight has to be preceded by an absurd gallop through the mud before they can lift themselves on their wings."

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