Historically, it was thought that the two populations in East and Southern Africa are separate and that no regular interchange takes place. The Greater flamingo began their breeding later but numbers grew continuously throughout the season/ to become once again the largest breeding colony of Greater flamingos in Africa, with numbers exceeding 40,000 individuals. This is one of the largest breeding colonies of Lesser flamingo in the whole of Africa, being second in size only to the breeding colony on Lake Natron in Tanzania. The Lesser flamingos were the first to begin their breeding and by the end of January, numbers reached over 80,000 birds at their main breeding colony. Numbers have exceeded 200,000 birds and the flamingos have been breeding very successfully since they arrived in January.
Two of the Lesser flamingo migrated to Kamfers Dam, near Kimberly, in the northern Cape, while the third Lesser is still in Botswana, on a small pan 150 km from Sua Pan. The other flew to South Africa, 40 km from the town of Mafeking. A recent project, carried out on the Makgadikgadi last year, is only now answering some of the questions that surround flamingo movements from the salt pans and their migration patterns around southern Africa.Of the Greater flamingos that were tracked, one went to Walvis Bay on the Namibian coast, 1250 km west of Sua. For years the origin of the flamingos that breed on the Makgadikgadi, has remained a mystery.
Breeding success is dependant upon the period of inundation and the flamingos must lay their eggs and raise their young before the pans dry up in the winter season and the large flocks are forced to leave and return to their winter-feeding grounds once again.
In years of good rainfall tens of thousands migrate to the inundated pans to feed and breed. The Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in northern Botswana is one of the most important breeding sites for Greater and Lesser flamingos in Africa. Here is a bit of information on flamingo in Botswana: In Tanzania - Lakes Natron, Manyara, Ndutu, Lake Magadi inside Ngorongoro crater Lakes Elmentaita, Nakuru, Bogoria, Magadi (remote area but fantastic) “There’s no certainty about why flamingos die in large numbers,” Harper said, but theories have suggested an infectious bout of pneumonia, he said.These are some of the places in Kenya where you can see them in abundance. He counted up to 1,000 fallen birds in a single day, and estimated that about 200,000 birds were lost that season. In fact, when Harper first visited Lake Bogoria in Kenya in 1989, he walked into one of the bigger die-offs in the East African population’s history. TONY KARUMBA / AFP - Getty Images fileīut large numbers of flamingos also have a tendency to die all at once, for reasons that remain unclear to researchers. Lesser flamingos are pictured on Septemin Lake Natron. A courting pair, plump from gulping down red algae and blushing from the pigment that the microbes leach into their skin, will produce a single oblong egg, laid in a miniature salt island made of the soda ash that precipitates out of the lake water as the water evaporates. Life and death on the banks of Lake Natronįlamingo flocks arrive at Natron annually, even though each bird will mate only once every four or five years.
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