Lesser Flamingo!

Our first day back in the Algarve and already a rarity!  Not for the first time our reward for helping out with the monthly wetland bird count at Castro Marim was seeing something unusual.

A few weeks ago we received news that a pair of Lesser Flamingos was breeding among the many thousands of Greater Flamingos at Laguna Fuente de Piedra in the Málaga province of Spain.  We know from colour-ringing that many of the Greater Flamingos we see in the Algarve originate from there so maybe then it shouldn’t have been such a surprise this afternoon to see a Lesser Flamingo among the many Greaters at Castro Marim.

Of course, today’s bird could be from somewhere else completely but it’s nice to think that it might have come from Laguna Fuente de Piedra and that it might stay in our area into the winter.  Even among the many hundreds of Greaters it should be easy enough to locate from its smaller size, all dark bill and generally pinker appearance.

We have only once before seen a Lesser Flamingo at Castro Marim; that was on 1st July 2007.  All records of this species are, of course, subject to scrutiny by the Portuguese Rarities Committee and even when accepted they are usually accompanied by a comment about the possibility of escape from captivity.  The breeding birds in Spain may well be from a wildfowl collection somewhere - who knows?

Lesser Flamingos are birds that we are more used to seeing in Africa mainly in the Rift Valley lakes of Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Tanzania - Part 2

From Tarangire we drove the short distance to Lake Manyara National Park for a one-night stay at the Lake Manyara Serena Lodge. This gave us a very limited time in the park, just an afternoon on arrival and then the following morning before we moved on again.

Manyara is actually a relatively small park - it covers 330 square kilometres, 200 square kilometres of which is lake when water levels are high. The road in to the park passes through some quite dense woodland where Silvery-cheeked Hornbills were the most notable birds. Numerous Olive Baboons lined the road and we also saw several Sykes's Monkeys. On the grassy floodplain, Zebras, Wildebeest, Giraffes and Impala were grazing.

Olive Baboon

Silvery-cheeked Hornbill

We had seen from the lodge, situated high on a hillside above the lake, what must have been tens of thousands of Lesser Flamingos, from a distance just a mass of pink. Unfortunately, when we went to the lake we found there was no way that we could get anywhere near them which was rather frustrating. These are birds some of which breed at Lake Natron, a Ramsar Site that is currently threatened by the development of a soda ash plant on its shores. A world wide campaign is in progress to stop the planned construction of the soda ash factory by Tata Chemicals Ltd of Mumbai, India and National Development Corporation of Tanzania.

Although there were no close-up Flamingos we did get some excellent views of other birds at the edge of the lake. There were countless Great White Pelicans, at least 200 African Spoonbills and a similar number of Yellow-billed Storks, plus Grey Herons, Great Cormorants of the race lucidus, Collared Pratincoles, Spur-winged Lapwings, Cattle Egrets, Grey-headed Gulls and even a couple of Greenshanks. It was quite a sight. All of these were at the aptly-named Hippo Pool - apparently the collective noun for a group of Hippos is a bloat, which seemed quite appropriate!

Hippopotamus - with Yellow-billed Oxpecker onboard

Great White Pelican

African Spoonbill

Amongst the many other birds seen in the park, personal favourites were a pair of elegant Mountain Wagtails at a nest - a reminder that the lake is at an altitude of about 1,000 metres above sea level.

More to follow...