Flamingo 8 by kaward
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Description
No I haven't pumped up the colour! Many of the Flamingos where pink, this one was 3 shades redder! I spent quite a while studying these at the time. They produce far more abstract opportunities than anything I have photographed. They are weird shapes anyway but have snake like flexibility in that neck.
Comments (8)
Cyve
Fantastic colors and marvelous shot !!!
Adobe_One_Kenobi
How can this be anything other than a fantastic shot Kevin. I once rad that flamingos are actually white and it's their fondness for shrimp that turns them pink. I personally think that unfounded as shrimps are actually blue, they only turn pink after cooking. Probably another of those urban legends that has stuck like glue. Popped into faves dear friend.
jayfar
This shot is such a beautiful one, in fact a masterpiece.
durleybeachbum
Aha! Ronnie hasn't realised that Brine Shrimps are red! What a terrific photo!
-seek-
great pose!
kgb224
We have them here at Pretoria Zoo as well. Superb capture my friend. God bless.
pat40
Superb pic. beautiful colour
MrsRatbag
It is the diet that gives them this colour, and not that the shrimps are this colour, but that they produce this colour when eaten, apparently. Flamingoes can be such a challenge to capture, because they are so lanky that it's difficult to frame them, but when they snake their necks around like this and fix you with their glowing eye it's an amazing sight, and you got a real winner here!
MrsRatbag
From Wikipedia: Young flamingos hatch with greyish reddish plumage, but adults range from light pink to bright red due to aqueous bacteria and beta-Carotene obtained from their food supply. A well-fed, healthy flamingo is more vibrantly colored and thus a more desirable mate; a white or pale flamingo, however, is usually unhealthy or malnourished. Captive flamingos are a notable exception; many turn a pale pink as they are not fed carotene at levels comparable to the wild.[ Flamingos filter-feed on brine shrimp and blue-green algae. Their beaks are specially adapted to separate mud and silt from the food they eat, and are uniquely used upside-down. The filtering of food items is assisted by hairy structures called lamellae which line the mandibles, and the large rough-surfaced tongue. The pink or reddish color of flamingos comes from carotenoids in their diet of animal and plant plankton. These carotenoids are broken down into pigments by liver enzymes. The source of this varies by species, and affects the saturation of color. Flamingos whose sole diet is blue-green algae are darker in color compared to those who get it second hand (e.g. from animals that have digested blue-green algae).