Kissing Flamingos

by Judi Dressler

Title

Kissing Flamingos

Artist

Judi Dressler

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

At the Albuquerque Zoo, the Flamingos were mostly sleeping, with their heads snugly buried into their feathered backs. But every once in a while, one or more would raise up a head and call out, whereupon usually a few more would follow suit, so there was a bunch of commotion, followed again by silence and sleeping. During one of these episodes, these two found each other and reached their long necks towards each other for a kiss.

From Wikipedia: "Flamingos are very social birds; they live in colonies whose population can number in the thousands. These large colonies are believed to serve three purposes for the flamingos: avoiding predators, maximizing food intake, and using scarce suitable nesting sites more efficiently. Before breeding, flamingo colonies split into breeding groups of about 15 to 50 birds. Both males and females in these groups perform synchronized ritual displays. The members of a group stand together and display to each other by stretching their necks upwards, then uttering calls while head-flagging, and then flapping their wings. The displays do not seem to be directed towards an individual but instead occur randomly. These displays stimulate "synchronous nesting" and help pair up those birds who do not already have mates."

Photo taken on December 6, 2017, at the Alubuquerque Zoo in NM.

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Descriptive tags and keywords for this image include flamingos, flamingoes, beaks, bills, kissing, kiss, exotic, red, orange, long legged, two, pair, couple, sweeties, large, big, close-up, portrait, love, lovers, wading, birds, phoenicopterus, phoenicopteridae, zoo, albuquerque, nm, new mexico, photo, photography, photograph, and judi dressler.

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December 19th, 2017

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