The Greater Flamingo Gazette

#3 March 2020

Greater Flamingo news from around the Mediterranean

Dear Greater Flamingo Sponsors,

A warm welcome if you have recently adopted a flamingo and a big thanks for your support! Your contribution is essential for keeping the Greater Flamingo Programme alive at the Tour du Valat and helping our partners.

What do Greater Flamingos do during the winter?

Do they huddle together to not catch a cold? Or gorge on brine shrimp, which give them their beautiful colour, to make reserves?

Not at all! In fact, Greater Flamingos begin their courtship displays at the beginning of the winter.

During this period, the male birds try to seduce the females by showing off their dancing talents and decking themselves out in the most colourful plumage.

© C. Hanzen

Male flamingo plumage: male flamingos secrete an oily substance through their uropygial (or preening) gland located at the base of their tail. This substance contains carotenoids that enhance their colour. The more colourful they are, the more attractive they become for females, who consider their striking colour to be the sign of a good mate.

© S. Hilaire

Flamingo dancing: flamingos dance in a group, in a sequence of several movements. The more complex the dance, the more likely are their chances to breed.

Charlotte Perrot studied the behaviour of the Greater Flamingo and in particular the complexity of its courtship displays in her doctoral dissertation Variations individuelles des traits reproducteurs chez le Flamant rose : de l’appariement à l’envol des jeunes (Individual variations in the reproductive traits of the Greater Flamingo: from mating to chicks leaving the nest)  co-supervised by the Tour du Valat and the Centre of Functional Ecology and Evolution (CEFE/CNRS), Montpellier (2017).

© C. Perrot

Her research shows that the complexity of courtship displays correlates positively with the breeding success at the individual level. The explanation is that the flamingos that demonstrate the best capacity to perform complex displays are considered by potential partners as having the superior locomotor capacity needed for reproduction and for finding food when it’s time to feed the chicks.

If you dream of seeing the flamingos dance, go admire them at the Pont de Gau Ornithological Park. Their courtship display season lasts until the beginning of March, and you can see the flamingos performing exceptional dances to seduce their mates for the upcoming breeding season.

What does the Tour du Valat Greater Flamingo team do during the winter?

It goes without saying that the ring reading operations continue throughout this harsh season.

In addition, this February we organized a fun and physically challenging day as part of a large participatory project. 42 people from the Tour du Valat and its partners at the Camargue National Nature Reserve, the Camargue Regional Nature Park, Scamandre Nature Reserve, A Rocha, and the Friends of the Tour du Valat Association united their forces to build hundreds of nests on the islet in the Fangassier Lagoon so as to encourage nesting there.

© L. Parent/Tour du Valat

For over 40 years, the Fangassier Lagoon has been the largest breeding site for the species in France, and one of the main sites in the Mediterranean Basin.

However, for many reasons and disturbances, flamingos no longer nest on this site since 2015...

But we’re not going to give up! In 2020, the Tour du Valat has done everything it could so that the flamingos will nest and lay their eggs there. Then a nice day of ringing can be organized this summer to start keeping a watchful eye on this new generation!

Fangassier Lagoon © Zeppelin

Find out more about the Tour du Valat’s

Greater Flamingo programme

Read the Greater Flamingo Gazette #1 (August 2019)

and Gazette #2 (November 2019)

Did you know?

• Up to 15,000 nests can be installed on the Fangassier Islet.
• 400 nests were built there by the TDV and its partners in February 2020.

Ready to renew your support for 2020?

This is the place to go!

You can also adopt a flamingo on line for you or for a loved one. Here’s the place to go!

And of course, be sure to spread the news about our Greater Flamingo programme!