Mama flaming z pisklęciem
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Feeding time.
HEART-WARMING images of a Greater flamingo showering its chick with love have been captured.
Images show the pink-coloured flamingo mum protectively standing over her baby chick who still has downy grey feathers. The loving mum is pictured appearing to plant kisses on her little one at Birdland Park & Gardens, Gloucestershire, UK.
In order to feed their young Greater flamingo parents produce crop milk in their digestive tracts and regurgitate it, dripping it into their youngster's mouths.
The birds get their vibrant pink colouring from carotenoid pigments found in some of the food they eat, such as algae and invertebrates.
They usually feed with their head and most of their neck completely underwater.
Greater flamingos are the heaviest and tallest flamingo species standing at five feet tall and weighing over nine pounds as opposed to Lesser flamingos which are the shortest and lightest of the species standing at 2.9 feet and weighing 4.4 pounds.
The typical lifespan for the Greater flamingo in captivity is 60 years while in the wild it reduces to 30 years.
Birdland is home to a total of 36 Greater flamingos.
These adorable images were snapped by Mark Blakemore, a British technician as well as a wildlife photographer from Essex.
“It was wonderful to see the newborn and It’s always special for me to see and photograph the baby animals and birds since they are so cute,” he told mediadrumworld.com.
“I love that I’ll be able to look back at these photos on my visit to the park next year to see how well the chick and the rest of the brood grew up.
“I used a Nikon Z6ii camera with a Sigma 150-600 contemporary lens to take these pictures.”
ENDS
2024-10-27
Mediadrumimages/Mark Blakemore/Media Drum/East News
Media Drum
Mediadrumimages/Mark Blakemore
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2,4MB
26cm x 17cm by 300dpi
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