When we think of Flamingos we usually think of a pink bird with long skinny legs. Flamingos are tall, pink wading birds with thick downturned bills. They have slender legs, long, graceful necks, large wings and short tails They range from about 3 to 5 feet all. In fact, the staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors did not know that flamingos actually start out as being white. They get their vibrant rosy hue from the food they eat which is mostly shrimp and other crustaceans. Depending on the food they eat depends on the color they become. Another unknown fact to Sugar Land Chiropractors is when flamingos eat, they stand on two legs. However, when they are a sleep they can balance gracefully on one leg.
Biologist believe that the flamingos stand on one leg to conserve their body heat. The biologist also think it could be to camouflage themselves in ponds. Another possibility which the staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors were not aware of is that like many other animals such as dolphins and ducks, they turn off half of their brain while they sleep.
Scientists say that there were as many as 2,500 flamingos that lived in Florida until the early 20th century. At that time the were hunted to near extinction for their plume. These feathers were used to adorn the fashionable womenís hats of the period.
Many ornithologists once assumed most of the flamingos in Florida were escapees from captive population like Miamiís Hialeah Park racetrack which imported flamingos from Cuba in the 1930s. Studies of century-old birding reports recently appeared in a scientific journal have led them to the conclusion that the flamingos found in Florida today may be returnees from Mexico or the Caribbean reclaiming their natural territory. The reason this is important is because it makes these flamingos eligible for endangered species protection.
In 1957 the pink spastic flamingo yard ornament was invented by a Massachusetts sculptor named Don Featherstone. These were designed for the Union Productions company according to the Smithsonian Magazine, preserver of all things Americana. Don Featherstoneí inspiration was photographed in the National Geographic magazine. These pink plastic birds were originally sold in the Sears Roebuck catalog. Even today, one can occasionally spot the pink plastic flamingos in yards near Sugar Land Chiropractors.
Sugar Land Chiropractors and Flamingos
Here are somethings you may not have known about flamingos:
> The flamingo is the national bird of The Bahamas
> Flamingos are monogamous by nature
> Flamingos lay only one egg per year
> It takes flamingos about three years to get their pink and red feathers
> Adult flamingosí feathers range from light pink to bright red due to their food supply. The brighter the feathers, the more well-fed the flaming it
> Flamingos are water birds. They live in and around lagoons or lakes
> A flock of blamings is called a stand or a flamboyance
> Don Featherston of Massachusetts is the inventor of the pink plastic lawn flamingos which first went on sale in 1958
> The pink tropical bird is a preppy fashion statement that we fully support. In fact, we have already ordered these flamingo Espadrille shoes by Soludos for the summer
> Flamingos are very social. They live in colonies of thousands of birds
> There was an old greater flaming that lived to be 83 years old at the Adelaide Zoo in Australia. The flaming sadly passed away in 2014
> There are six species of flamingos
The old-timey tourist attraction Jungle Gardens, founded in 1939, is one of the few zoos in the nation that allows its flamingos to roam freely. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors think it would be good to see the flamingos roaming freely. Pink flamingos actually start out white. Flamingos are highly gregarious birds. Flocks numbering in the hundreds ay be seen in long, curving flight formations and wading groups along the shore. On some of East Africaís large lakes, more than a million lesser flamingos gather during the breeding season.
In flight, flamingos present a striking and beautiful sight, with legs and neck stretched out straight, looking like white and rosy crosses with black arms. The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find that a flock when it is a resting is also interesting to observe. With the flamingosí long neck twisted or coiled upon the body in any conceivable position. Flamingos are often seen standing on one leg.
Flamingo nests are a truncated cone of muddy clay piled up a few inches in a shallow lagoon. Both of the parents share the month-long incubation of the one or two chalky-white eggs that are laid in the hollow of the cone. Downy white young leave the nest in two or three days and are fed by regurgitation of partly digested food by the adults. Subadults are whitish, acquiring the pink plumage with age.
When the flamingos feed, they tramp the shallows, head down and bill underwater. They stir up organic matter with their webbed feet. It is interesting to Sugar Land Chiropractors all the different types of food flamingos eat. They eat various types of food, including diatoms, algae, blue-green algae and invertebrates such as minute mollusks and crustaceans. While the head swings from side to side, the food is strained from the muddy water with small comb like structures inside the bill.
The staff at Sugar Land Chiropractors find the different types of flamingos to be interesting. The greater flamingo breeds in large colonies on the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico in tropical and subtropical America. There are only two subspecies of the great flamingo: the Caribbean flaming and the Old-World flaming of Africa and Southern Europe and Asia. The Chilean flaming is primarily an inland species.
Two smaller species that live high in the Andes Mountains of South America are the Andean flamingo and the puna, or Jamesís flamingo. The former has a pink bank on each of its yellow legs and the latter was thought extinct until a remote population was discovered in 1956. The lesser flamingo, which inhabits the lake district of East Africa and parts of South Africa, Madagascar and India is the most abundant of all the flamingos. It is also the smallest and the deepest in color. In ancient Rome, flamingo tongues were eaten as a rare delicacy.