Get spotting some flamingo romance
It's the time of year when flamingo courtship display really gets going. So why are they such good dancers? And what moves should you look out for on your next visit to a WWT flamingo flock?
February is traditionally the month of love, what with it being Valentine’s Day and all. And the unseasonal hot spell (20 degrees at the end of winter?!) really perked up the flamingos. It’s now the time to look out for courtship and dancing, with flocks displaying a riot of colour and sound as the breeding season approaches.
The WWT Slimbridge Caribbean flamingos have certainly been on form these last few days! Check their move out here: Complete Caribbean flamingo display sequence.
It’s a good time to see how flamingos try to organise their dancing. I’ve mentioned this before in a few of these flamingo diaries, but if you’re a very tall male, you generally lead the parade. These birds are literally head and shoulders above other members of their flock. A quick scan of the greater and Caribbean flamingo flocks (where the size difference between boys and girls is perhaps most obvious) will show this very clearly.
Given the amount of attention we give to the dance moves of the flamingo, it’s probably worth while giving a bit more detail on why it is performed. What is the role of the head movements and wing posturing that the birds do so well, and in such perfectly choreographed routines.
Flamingo courtship behaviour is driven by sexual selection. The process whereby one individual is providing messages to others in the group that it is fit and ready to breed. Sexual selection is a mechanism that produces characteristics that members of the opposite sex will find favourable and therefore gives a clue as to the quality (is he or she strong, fertile, in good health, able to help raise young that will survive…) of a potential breeding partner.
In the case of flamingos, the pink plumage colour is one obvious way that birds can demonstrate how fit and healthy they are. Why? Because “pinkness” comes from diet. The more efficient you are at foraging, the more intense the colour of your feathers will be because you can gather more carotenoids to stain them pink.
And because flamingos feed their young directly on crop milk, manufactured in the parent’s body if you are efficient at feeding yourself and can collect lots of food to get your feathers really pink, then you stand a good chance of being good at feeding yourself AND your chick too.
So that’s the colour sorted, what about the dancing. Flamingos always start their courtship display with head flagging. If you’re a bird that lives in large flocks, where everyone is crowded together, then you need a way of standing out from the crowd to get the attention of other birds. By standing tall and waving their head from side-to-side, flamingos can communicate their intention to breed across a tightly-packed group.
You can see what I mean in this clip here: Greater flamingo head-flagging.
Once enough birds are in the mood to dance and have joined in with the head flagging, the flamingo can use a wider range of movements to show off its colour, strength and vigour. Wing salutes, where birds flash open their wings and snap them shut again show a contrasting colour of black primary feathers against an otherwise pink background. This contrast is a visual symbol of how bright a flamingo is and therefore how good it is as collecting lots of carotenoids to make its feathers bright.
The greater flamingo in the photo above is standing head and shoulders above the rest of the flock. An easy way for him to be noticed by other birds that want to start dancing.
Marching, where all birds move together as if on a conveyor belt, is very energetically demanding. So to keep up and keep in time, a bird must be in the best of health. The smaller flamingo species, like the lesser flamingo, march really well. Because they can squeeze in tight. The larger species, like the Caribbean flamingo, they march less well. More of a rabble or rugby scrum effect. The larger flamingos rely a lot more on wing saluting to show off their attractiveness than they do on marching. For the wing salutes and wing stretches to work best, birds must also take the time to keep their feathers clean, dry and oiled. Therefore another signal of fitness and mate quality is how much time a flamingo spends preening. More preening, cleaner feathers, a better courtship display.
This juvenile greater flamingo is practicing a wing-leg stretch. It's a courtship display behaviour, very similar to how birds preen and re-arrange their feathers.
It’s no wonder that the courtship display is based on preening behaviours. Flamingos spent a lot of time keeping their feathers in good condition. So the wing stretches, twist-preens and broken-neck displays are basically birds doing exaggerated preening movements. “Look at me, I am so good at keeping my feathers clean that you should pick me as your partner”.
And what is still a mystery…? Just how one flamingo chooses another to pair up with. Birds get involved in a big group to do their displaying, and then are seen as pairs, in close proximity, sometimes with the male flamingo fending off other birds from his partner. But the mechanism for getting from a flamboyance of dancing birds to individual birds is unknown.
Here’s our tick list then, of why flamingos do their incredible courtship dance.
1. Birds with brighter pink feathers are better at foraging. Therefore they should be better at feeding a chick.
2. Birds with the cleanest feathers have spent the most time preening and therefore can have the most vivid courtship display.
3. The head movements for head flagging signal across a large flock that some birds are keen to start breeding. It’s a visible signal that travels far.
4. The dance moves of wing salutes and wing stretches show off the good condition of a bird’s feathers.
5. For those flamingos that march, the more time spent marching and keeping up with a group means they are healthier and fitter and therefore are likely to have more energy to use for becoming a parent.
If you’d like to know more about the courtship display of the flamingo and what to see, check out this WildWatch here: WildWatch February 2019
And in case you were wondering, flamenco dancing is thought by some to come from the posture and movements of the flamingo (that are also called flamenco in Spanish). Happy flirty flamingo spotting!
