Field record
Greater Flamingo
Phoenicopterus roseus
Word went around that flamingos had landed on a lake outside Bangalore — birds you don't expect anywhere near the city. We drove out to Hoskote and waited at the water's edge until they came close enough. Three juveniles, still in grey.
- Location
- Hoskote Lake, Bangalore
- Coordinates
- 13.07° N · 77.80° E
Field guideLeast Concern
It feeds head-down, pumping water through comb-like plates in its bent bill to strain out tiny prey; the pink of an adult is borrowed from carotenoids in that food, so the grey birds here are juveniles yet to take on colour. A vagrant to the Bengaluru region — recorded at Hoskote Lake only a handful of times, the notable earlier visit a flock of about six in September 2019.
- Family
- Phoenicopteridae (flamingos)
- Length
- 110–150 cm
- Wingspan
- 140–187 cm
- Diet
- Algae, diatoms, brine shrimp and other small crustaceans, molluscs, and insect larvae, filtered from water and mud
- Range
- Africa, southern Europe, and southern and south-western Asia; wanders widely and turns up inland as a vagrant