Nancy Hauser, age 10, of San Antonio, Tex., for her question:
DOES THE FLAMINGO BUILD A NEST?
Flamingos are famous for their long, stiltlike legs and curved necks and bills. They can be found in many parts of the world and spend almost all of their lives near lakes, marshes and seas.
Flamingos build nests that are nothing more than mounds of mud. Most of the female flamingos lay a single egg in a shallow hole at the top of the nest. The parents then take turns sitting on the egg to keep it warm.
The egg hatches after about 30 days. Young flamingos leave the nest after about five days and form small groups. But the young return to their own nests regularly to feed on a fluid produced in the digestive system of the parents.
The parents dribble the fluid from their mouths into the youngster's bill. After about two weeks, the young form larger herds and start to find their own food.
Flamingos in the wild live in colonies, some of which have thousands of members. The birds mate once each year.
Most flamingos stand from three to five feet tall. The color of the feathers, except for a few black wing feathers, varies from bright red to pale pink.
Flamingos of the Carribean area have coral red feathers and South American flamingos have pinkish white feathers.
Most flamingos eat shellfish and small water plants called algae. Hairlike "combs" along the edges of the bill strain mud and sand from the food a flamingo finds in the water.
Falmingos, like ducks, have webbed feet.
In their wild, natural surroundings, flamingos live from between 15 and 20 years. In captivity, where they are always extremely popular, they often live even longer than this. They nicely adjust to lives in zoos and animal parks.
Zoologists group flamingos into four species. The greater flamingo lives in Africa, southern Asia and Europe, southern South America and the West Indies.
The lesser flamingo lives in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanganyika in Africa.
The two other species are the rare Andean and James' flamingo. They live near the highland lakes of the Andes Mountains in South America.
Wild flamingos lived in southern Florida at one time. People, however, killed them for their beautiful feathers faster than the birds could multiply.
West Indies flamingos brought to the racetrack at Hialeah in southern Florida have prospered and are now breeding within the racecourse the only breeding colony of falmingos in the United States. Some of these birds occasionally escape and when seen, give rise to reports of flamingos in the Everglades.
Flamingos fly in long skeins, with necks straight out in front and their feet trailing behind. They are vocal in flight, honking much like geese.
The bill of the falmingo is unique among birds, as is its feeding method. The birds feed with their top bill bottom most and the lower bill above it pumping against it to sieve the water and mud through the slits on the top bill and the similar toothlike projections on the tongue which act as a sieve.