Record 50 pink flamingo eggs at Bussolengo Park

by time news

Record Easter for pink flamingos at the Parco Natura Viva in Bussolengo. With the deposition of 50 eggs, the colony has indeed beat every milestone already achieved in past years. Among the traditional noises, the first chicks are expected for this Sunday despite the unknown factor of the lower than usual nests. “The drought – they explain from Parco Natura Viva – between the end of winter and the beginning of spring did not allow flamingo mum and dad to use the mud necessary to reach 40-50 cm in height and thus, the eggs could more subject to possible slipping in the water.


“It is also true, however – underlines Camillo Sandri, veterinarian and technical director of the Parco Natura Viva – that the least rainy season has sheltered couples from flooding that could have compromised the safety of the nests anyway. “For the moment, therefore, the 25 breeding pairs on the island they seem to follow the perfect synchronism typical of this gregarious species, which has seen the specimens reproduce all over the span of about ten days and then start the choice of the best places and build the nests all close to each other.

“This is typical behavior for pink flamingos that in nature they can live in colonies of thousands of individuals and that make the number their strong point. Despite this, however, it is a species known to form monogamous pairs that every year meet among a thousand to welcome a new offspring “explains Sandri.

In fact, flamingo mom and dad face this period by sharing burdens and honors of being parents: from the care of the egg to the attention for the partner engaged in the hatching, the two will then move on to the crucial moment of hatching and to the total protection of the chick which usually spends the first weeks under the wing of the adult. Then, another critical phase: the day will come when the baby will have to descend from the nest and cross the water that separates it from the area dedicated to the “nest age” chicks, together with all the others in the colony.

“If a little one can get through all these moments – Sandri finally adds – will have good hopes of reaching the young age but its path is full of uncertainties “. Not all the 50 eggs that are now found under the warm belly of mum and dad, therefore, can correspond to a gray and feathery chick that in June, will wait in the ‘nursery’ for the parents to arrive with their own meal. But every couple invests all the energy at their disposal in achieving the result without ever sparing themselves.

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