Cupids and crustaceans for the flamingo

Audio 03:47

Pink flamingos stand together in the water at the ornithological park of Pont de Gau, in the Camargue, February 4, 2015. © AFP - ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT

By: Florent Guignard

9 mins

The flamingo is not only the star buoy of swimming pools and summer beaches!

It is first of all a bird, symbol of the Camargue, in the south of France, the most important wetland in the Mediterranean basin.

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“

 When we talk about the Camargue, we always think of white horses, black bulls ... and pink flamingos! 

»Frédéric Lamouroux, who welcomes us on this summer evening, at sunset, in his ornithological park of Pont-de-Gau, a few kilometers from Saintes-Marie-de-la-Mer, sees life in pink above all. Hundreds of pink flamingos surround us, among dozens of other avian species that have come to stopover, feed or reproduce in its paradise at sea, a paradise for birds, in the heart of the Rhône delta, between ponds and salt marshes.

The flamingo is a Camargue star.

We only see him.

We only hear him.

But let's get rid of the subject straight away: the song of the flamingo - it is said to growl and, yes, it looks like a goose - is much less graceful than its plumage.

Tens of thousands of flamingos live in the Camargue, the most important habitat area for 

Phoenicopterus roseus

 in the Mediterranean.

But in the last century, the bird was almost eradicated by hunters.

However, there is not much to eat in the flamingo - an average weight of 3 kilos all wet for this featherweight pink.

In fact, flamingos are not always pink.

Love lasts a year

“ 

There, there is a young person who has just arrived, 

shows us Frédéric Lamouroux. 

It is a juvenile from last year. That's why he's still gray

. »Too young still to fix the carotene present in artemia, the tiny crustaceans on which the flamingo feeds, water up to mid-paw, and even less. The flamingo prefers paddling pools to Olympic pools to feed thanks to its unique beak among birds. “

 It has a very long beak that filters muddy water like a whale,”

 describes Frédéric Lamouroux. 

It has very long webbed legs, a very large neck. It looks like a kind of duck whose legs and neck have been stretched! 

"

Flamingos are gregarious animals that live in colonies populated by several thousand individuals. An erratic species as well, which will spend several years here in the Camargue before leaving for Spain or Tunisia, depending on its mood, without ever leaving the Mediterranean basin. Erratic also in love. In the flamingo, love lasts a year. “

 He's a very loyal animal. But seasonal loyalty,

 smiles Frédéric Lamouroux. 

We know this because we have ringed birds 

”

,

 and this is one of the functions of the Pont-de-Gau ornithological park: the inventory of species, in conjunction with La Tour du Vallat, a scientific research institute on Mediterranean wetlands. " 

The couples will go for a walk together all the time, we will always see them as a duo, 

continues the ornithologist. 

But when the chick is independent, at the age of 10 or 12 weeks, the couple separate.

They will never meet again. 

"

One among thousands

But until the end of the summer, the couples remain united and watch over their offspring, gathered in giant cribs. “ 

We're going to have bans of 100, 200, 3,000, 4,000, 10,000 chicks who are all together. From an early age, they learn this system of gregarious living. Every evening, the parents come back to feed their little one. They will spot their chick among sometimes 10,000 others by uttering a cry. The chick will answer them and they will land next to feed it.

 »Dusk is approaching in Pont-de-Gau, it is precisely time to go find his little one. In small groups, the flamingos leave the reserve and take flight, as if they were walking on water. The sun has just set and the sky is pink too. 

"Are animals entitled to surrogacy?"

»

Surrogate mothers for animals?

This is the experiment we are going to try in Kenya on a technically extinct subspecies, the northern white rhinoceros, which lived in Sudan and as far as Uganda.

The last male died 3 years ago, but sperm has been saved to fertilize the last two females still alive on the planet.

Except that they are too fragile to support a pregnancy.

Then their embryos will be carried by female southern white rhinos - more are left in southern Africa.

We keep you posted for the pink notebook.

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