The ‘flame birds’, from the Spanish word ‘flamengo’. These colourful animals are native to a lot of places in the world. There are 6 different species but it would take years of experience to learn to differentiate them.
Their knees bend in the opposite direction of our knees... Actually, I don’t know if there is a lot of birds that have knees. The pink colour; that is like their main thing, is actually caused by the diet that they have, they eat a lot of algae that is very high on beta-carotene. A newly born flamingo would actually be greyish, they get pink one or two years after when they have consumed enough beta-carotene.
They are wading birds, which basically means that they like to live close to the water. They are normally found in muddy flats or estuaries, you may think that are animals of warm weather but they can handle cold temperatures pretty well. They happen to prefer warm places because of... Well, who likes to live in a cold place?
They like to live in big groups, they have a whole set of different mating dances that they do together, basically, they are the swingers of the animal kingdom. When they have mated and are ready to drop some eggs in the nest, both male and female take care of the eggs, which make them a lot more advances in the sex equality movement than other animals.
But as any species on the face of the earth, there are some lazy ones that don’t think that is worth their time to build a nest, no matter what there is always some lazy people, right?. This outcasts of the flamingo society find it easier to steal the nests of other couples.
I took this picture in a pretty cool themed park on the Riviera Maya, in Mexico, 'Xel-Ha.' If you have the opportunity to go there you won’t be disappointed is a nice way to spend $150 (I wouldn't pay more than that, fuck the inflation) to enjoy the Caribbean on a full day experience.
