All species › Flamingos › Flamingos › Chilean flamingo
Chilean flamingo
Phoenicopterus chilensis | Chileense flamingo | Flamenco chileno
A pale pink flamingo from South America that has escaped from collections in Europe. In the Dutch Delta and at Zwillbrocker Venn it forms part of the mixed flamingo flock.
Voice
Goose-like, as in Greater Flamingo: a nasal bleating ka-ha and a low grumbling chatter from feeding groups, on average slightly higher and sharper in tone. Birds in flight call loudly and persistently. Audible year round, most of all around the colony in spring.
No freely licensed recording is available for this species yet.
Identification
Slightly smaller and more compact than Greater Flamingo, pale pinkish white with deeper pink coverts. The legs decide it: grey-blue with bright red joints and red feet rather than uniformly pink. The bill is pale with an extensive black tip covering roughly half its length, and the face is pink-feathered to the base of the bill.
Confusion species
Greater Flamingo is bigger and whiter, with all-pink legs and only a short black bill tip. Lesser Flamingo is clearly smaller and deeper pink, with a dark red bill that looks black at range. Hybrids from the mixed colony are frequent, so always read leg colour and the extent of black on the bill together.
Habitat
Shallow salt and brackish water without fringing vegetation: mudflats, creeks, inlays and saline pools, where it sieves the mud with its head upside down. In Europe it shares the feeding grounds of Greater Flamingo in the Delta and the Wadden Sea and summers on closed-off sea arms.
Range and movements
South American by origin, from Andean lakes to the coasts of Chile and Argentina. The European birds are escapes from zoos and private collections and belong to the mixed flamingo flock that breeds at Zwillbrocker Venn and feeds in the Dutch Delta and the Wadden Sea. In Spain it occurs as odd escaped birds among Greater Flamingos.
- Resident
- Breeding (summer)
- Winter
- Passage
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
Where and when to look
August to October in the Delta, for instance on the Zwarte Meer or the Grevelingen, in low evening light. Find the flamingo flock and work through it leg by leg with a scope; grey legs with red knees stand out the moment a bird steps out of the water or settles to rest.
Conservation status
Assessed as Near Threatened in South America, declining through egg collecting, mining and water abstraction at the Andean lakes. The European birds are not a self-sustaining population and depend on further escapes and on the fortunes of the mixed colony. Hybridisation with Greater Flamingo makes the flock ever harder to untangle.