Flamingos

Two flavours of flamingo are on offer at Walvis Bay

Lesser Flamingo

Lesser flamingoes are the smallest variety of flamingo on offer in Namibia. They are also the pinkest, and have a black beak.

The flamingos we saw were in Walvis Bay and along the coast south towards Sandwich Harbour. Breeding for these guys is mainly on salt pans inland, such as at Etosha or Makgadikgadi. The number of safe and viable breeding sites in Southern Africa is running out, so despite there being thousands of lesser flamingos at Walvis Bay, they are near threatened on a global scale

Whilst smaller than their esteemed counterparts, the lesser flamingoes are still 80-90cm tall (according to wikipedia at least) which makes them fairly big as birds go.

Lesser flamingos feed on spirulina algae – which contains the pigments that make their feathers pink – something to consider when you’re thinking about buying some to kickstart your next health drive

The way they feed is by dunking their head in the water upside down, and scraping the top of their bill along the floor to collect mud and algae. They then filter out algae from the mud using a special mechanism.

To e or not to e? It transpires the correct plural of flamingo, is flamingos.

In my opinion flamingoes is better.

Greater Flamingo

Bigger, and less threatened than the lesser flamingo, greater flamingos are white, and not pink.

They are much taller and seem to have a longer neck, but on the downside they’re anti-social and only congregate hundreds of metres off shore.

Unlike their smaller counterparts, Greater flamingos eat more than just algae. They feed by stirring up the mud and sucking the water through their bill. This way they catch some shrimp and other organisms. Less scraping of the ground, and more protein.