Elegant yet whimsical, flamingos are easily recognized after their pink plumage, thin legs and slender bodies that support their long, flexible necks.
As one of the more social birds in the avian world, flamingos are never solitary. They like to gather in large groups that feed together, travel together, and breed at the same time.
If you’re curious to learn about the different names applied to groups of flamingos and other interesting facts associated with these birds, I’ve gathered up some of your most pressing questions about these magnificent birds.
What is a Group of Flamingos Called?
Flamingos form groups of flocks of several dozen individuals to up to a million individuals. A group or flock of flamingos is called a ‘flamboyance’ or a ‘colony’.
Other words for a flock of flamingos include a ‘regimen’ or a ‘stand’, but colony and flamboyance are the words most often used.
The word ‘flamboyance’ originates from the French word ‘flambe’, meaning flame. In English, it’s used to describe the quality of being colorful, bright, or noticeable.
Why do Flamingos Gather in Such a Large Group?
Gathering in such large groups has multiple benefits for flamingos:
– There’s safety in numbers
Living in large groups helps protect flamingos from predators and intruders. While several predators can prey on adult flamingos as well, baby flamingos and flamingo eggs are most at risk of being eaten by predators.
– Breeding success
Breeding is synchronous in flamingo populations. Flamingo pairs need to be part of large flocks to stimulate breeding. This once again has to do with safety. The more flamingos available to keep an eye on baby flamingos, the higher the overall breeding success.
– Ease of migration
Although not all flamingos are migratory, some are. Flamingos fly in a V-shaped formation that helps them cover longer distances and share the burden of leading the formation.
This allows them to take turns flying downstream from the strongest wind resistance, which allows them to somewhat rest before taking on the leading position.
– Exchange of valuable information
Flamingos are notoriously noisy, which is a result of their social nature. Their constant communication allows them to exchange valuable information such as the whereabouts of food sources, alerting each other to potential dangers, pairing up for mating, and keeping flight direction while flying in a formation.
What are Male Flamingos Called?
The male flamingo is simply called a “flamingo”. Male and female flamingos aren’t named differently.
It can be difficult to tell the difference between a male and female flamingo since they look the same.
What are Female Flamingos Called?
A female flamingo is called a “flamingo”. The only notable difference between a male and a female flamingo is size. Females are slightly smaller than male flamingos in terms of wingspan, height and weight.
It’s the female that lays the eggs and builds the nest, but both parents take turns incubating the eggs by taking turns sitting on the nest mound.
Likewise, both genders take part in feeding the flamingo chick until it can feed on its own.
What are Baby Flamingos Called?
A baby flamingo is called a ‘chick’. Another term used to describe a baby flamingo is ‘flaminglet’; however, flamingo chick is the most used one.
After the flamingo egg hatches, the baby flamingo isn’t immediately able to leave the nest. It takes about 4-10 days for them to leave the nest. But even then, flamingo chicks are unable to fly.
Baby flamingos can only fly after their flight feathers have grown in, which can take around 2-3 months after hatching.
Interesting Facts About Flamingos
Fascinated by flamingos? Here are some more interesting flamingo facts:
- Baby flamingos aren’t born pink. Pink feathers in flamingos are a result of their diet. A pigment found in shrimp, crustaceans and various other foods flamingos consume color their feathers pink. It can take as much as three years for baby flamingos to turn pink.
- Flamingos produce a single egg per breeding season. Therefore, a flamingo pair will have only one flamingo chick at any one time.
- Flamingos sleep resting on one leg, with their heads on their backs and the beak tucked away in their feathers. While it may look uncomfortable, flamingos actually conserve energy this way.
- There are only six remaining flamingo species in the world. These are the Caribbean flamingo, the Chilean flamingo, the Andean flamingo, the Greater Flamingo, the Lesser Flamingo, and James’s Flamingo.
- Flamingos feed their young with a substance called ‘crop milk’ that is secreted by the lower esophagus of both the male and the female flamingo. Crop milk is blood red due to the carotenoid pigments present in the diet of algae and crustaceans of the adult birds.
- Baby flamingos are grouped together in a ‘crèche’, which is a nursery of sorts, allowing baby flamingos to explore together under the watchful eyes of a few flamingo adults.
- Flamingos have a long lifespan, some birds in the wild living as many as 30-40 years or more. Some captive-raised flamingos can live as many as 50 years.
- The Lesser Flamingo species is the most numerous in the world, while the Andean flamingo is the most threatened of all the flamingo species.
- Flamingos can travel as many as 600 km (373 miles) during a single night. They fly in V-shaped formations.
- Flamingos live in varied habitats from the high elevations of the Andes Mountains to coastal areas of Africa, parts of the Middle East and India. Some species of flamingos can be found even in southern Spain and the Canary Islands as well.
Conclusion
Flamingos live in large groups forming colonies of thousands of individuals. They’re the quintessential gregarious bird. There are many benefits to this form of life – better breeding outcomes, better access to food sources, higher safety from predators, etc.
Flamingos are also communicative birds; they rely a lot on vocalizations and sounds they make to exchange valuable information with each other.
Hopefully, I have managed to satisfy your curiosity about flamingos and did justice to the amazing nature of these magnificent birds.