H.J. Ruiz – Avian101

The Chilean Flamingo,  is a large species closely related to Caribbean Flamingo and Greater Flamingo. It breeds in temperate South America from Ecuador and Peru to Chile and Argentina and east to Brazil; it has been introduced into Germany and the Netherlands (colony on the border, Zwilbrockervenn). There also a small population in Utah and California. Like all flamingos it lays a single chalky white egg on a mud mound.

The plumage is pinker than the slightly larger Greater Flamingo, but less so than Caribbean Flamingo. It can be differentiated from these species by its greyish legs with pink “knees”, and also by the larger amount of black on the bill (more than half). Young chicks may have no sign of pink coloring whatsoever, but instead remain grey.

The Chilean flamingo’s bill is equipped with comb-like structures that enable it to filter food—mainly algae and plankton—from the water of the coastal mudflats, estuaries, lagoons and salt lakes where it lives.

Click on images for enlargements

Text excerpts © Wikipedia – Photographs © H.J. Ruiz – Avian 101