Greater Flamingo

What a Magnificent birds are Flamingo's ? Spending time with those huge brightly coloured birds is just refreshing and the mood booster!

"Flamingo comes from the latin word for flame"

They are social birds usually lives in 100s of numbers in habitats like estuaries or saline lakes. Pulicat is one such beautiful habitat where I spotted them so closely, on my fourth attempt to see them in the month of September 2015. 

Greater flamingos live and feed in groups called flocks or colonies. They find safety in numbers, which helps to protect individual birds from predators while their heads are down in the mud.

Hired a boat from fisher man and started exploring second largest salt lake of India, the pulicat lake - stands after famous chilika lake of orissa. The beauty of this lagoon is its depth which is shallow mostly.

Coming back to hiring a boat, I went little deep inside the lake and spotted these greater pink birds far away along with other waders like herons and storks. Once we approached reasonable distance from the bird then the entire show began. Primary intentions is to just sit calmly and observe the behaviour without disturbing any of the birds around. 

Framing and photographing flamingos are different joy and experience. Made images till my 12 GB memory lasts + fully charged battery drained. 

It was early morning with soft lighting - moderate cloud cover till 10:30 AM. Spent quality time with birds and when sun started shining too much we had to vacate the place and come back to shore with long cherished memory and patience of frequently visiting different parts of the lake in search of Flamingos finally paid off.

Greater Flamingos feed upon insects, worms, vegetation and algae. 

Greater Flamingos are unmistakable in flight with their long, thin neck outstretched in front and their long legs outstretched behind them. Their brilliant pink colour is visible and great treat available to enjoy during its flight.