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martes, 13 de noviembre de 2012

News: Major flamingo breeding event begins on Lake Natron

Early reports suggest that this could become the most significant breeding event since 2007.
But the flamingos' breeding success will depend on a combination of environmental factors.
The gathering is one of nature's "fantastic spectacles", said Sarah Ward, of the University of Southampton.
Three-quarters of the world population of lesser flamingos (Hoenicopterus minor) live in East Africa and use Lake Natron as their nesting site.
"Large breeding events involving over a million [lesser] flamingos are not unusual if conditions at Lake Natron are suitable and if the flamingos are in good health," explained Ms Ward, a PhD research student studying the relationship between East African lakes and lesser flamingo populations at the university's Institute of Complex Systems Simulation (ICSS) and geography departments.
East Africa's lesser flamingos are nomadic and feed in a chain of alkaline soda lakes along the Rift Valley but Lake Natron is the only significant nesting site.
Islands on the huge, shallow soda lake are so inaccessible that researchers' observations of breeding lesser flamingos and their numbers can often only be made from aircraft, or from sightings of young flamingos at other lakes after they have fledged.
While it is difficult to monitor numbers, initial reports estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of birds, meaning this could be the most significant breeding attempt since 2007.
"Large groups have been heard flying towards Lake Natron at night by guides in the Maasai Mara," Ms Ward commented.
A 700,000-strong group of birds that has recently left Lake Bogoria, Kenya, is also thought to have headed to the Lake Natron breeding ground.
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