Accidental engineers?
I've just posted in the IUCN SSC Flamingo Specialist Group Facebook page about a new piece of science recently published that explains a link between flamingo behaviour and the ecology of their wetland habitats. Scientists working in the Rift Valley in East Africa (one of the oldest areas of the planet, and the cradle for human evolution) have discovered that the feeding, foraging and nest building behaviour of flamingos can alter sedimentation processes and the topology ("lie") of the land around the edges of the lakes that they feed or breed in. The disturbance caused by the flamingos can be measured to discover the extent to which the birds alter the movements and processes in the soil. Now, I am no geologist but from my observations of the birds at WWT Slimbridge, I can see how they could potentially leave long-lasting changes to the substrate that they are active on. The paper, by Scott and colleagues from universities in Canada and Hong Kong examines fossil evidence of flamingo behaviour and shows that feeding and breeding strategies have been unchanged since the Pleistocene Era, a period of time in the earth's history around 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago. The marks left in rock of footprints provides clues to the activities of the birds and the type of habitat that they favoured, and still do favour.
Watching the birds in captivity you can observe one of the feeding behaviour that can cause disruption and disturbance to the substrate (bottom of the pond) and get an idea of what the scientists are studying. Flamingos will often "stamp feed" in shallow water; paddling furiously with their feet whilst spinning on the spot to stir up small creatures and algae from the mud that can be filtered out using the whale-like lamellae mesh in the flamingo's beak. This stamp-feeding is especially common in the "shallow-keeled" species; the greater, Caribbean and Chilean who have a bill designed for extracting larger particles out of the water. The "deep-keeled" species (lesser, James' and Andean) possess more intricate structures suited for sieving out tiny floating particles from the water column. So stand and watch next time you're visiting and if you see a flamingo furiously dancing on the spot with its beak in the water, you'll know precisely what it is doing and you'll also be getting a glimpse back in time to the prehistoric evolution of the modern flamingo's behaviour. Now who says that mud is not interesting?!
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hUDeKFrWLw&feature=plcp']
[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmnEDDrQkwM&feature=plcp']
Short clips of "foot-stamp" feeding in the Caribbean and Chilean flamingos at WWT Slimbridge. The Chilean flamingos are feeding in deeper water and the birds are rummaging through the mud and debris at the bottom of the pond whilst stamping with their feet. A small flotilla of other waterbirds might sometimes follow a flamingo feeding in this fashion, hoping to catch a free snack.
