Fifteen greater flamingos made their home in the Regional Landscape Park Feldman Ecopark. They arrived from a private zoo and, according to the specialists, they have already got used to the new home. The new spacious enclosure was equipped especially for the birds.
“We’ve tried to create all the necessary conditions for the birds. There must be a pool in the enclosure for flamingos. And it must be shallow – 15-50cm – in order for them not to harm their legs. It is also important to have small islands, where they are able to lay and to incubate eggs. In winter, the birds will live here in warm houses,” Feldman Ecopark’s deputy director of zootechnics Valeriia Ivashchenko told. “In the near future, we will improve the enclosure with a lawn, and replace the mesh with green fence for the visitors to be even closer to these fantastically beautiful creatures and to get aesthetic pleasure watching them.”
It should be reminded that the greater flamingos appeared in the bird collection of Feldman Ecopark for the first time. The collection consists of nearly 1,000 representatives of more than a hundred species. It should be also noted that the greater flamingo is a species of the Phoenicopteriformes order. These birds have long legs, a lithe graceful neck and a heavy arched bill, with the help of which they filter food from water or silt. The greater flamingos have light-pink colouration of plumage, which is caused by the carotenoid and lipochromes pigments contained in their main food – small red crayfishes. In zoos, flamingos don’t lose their unique colouration, because their food is full of various products containing carotene: grated carrot, sweet pepper and, above all, small shellfishes.
