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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI14090837/00001
Notes
- Scope and Content:
- Source: Flamingos 1
Length of Segment: 00:01:14
Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. One of the most endearing and enduring of Florida symbols is our flamingo. Yet most Floridians have never seen a live flamingo in the wild in Florida. Flamingos, other than the plastic variety, have lived in Florida and still occasionally show up in the state, especially at such places as, well, Flamingo at the southern tip of the Florida peninsula in Everglades National Park. Our flamingo is properly known as the ‘greater flamingo’ and is the national bird of the Bahama Islands where more than 80,000 of them have nested on Great Inagua. The greater flamingo has a very broad distribution, nesting in several isolated localities in the West Indies and Bahamas as well as in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and North Africa, north to southern Russia. In Florida, it's a rare species today that has a small population at Snake Bight, that's B-I-G-H-T, in Everglades National Park. A century-and-a-half ago, flamingos where much more common in South Florida and in the winter of 1879, great flocks of flamingos were seen around Charlotte Harbor. ( English,English,English,English )
- Scope and Content:
- Source: Flamingos 2
Length of Segment: 00:01:10
Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. As I was watching birds coming to roost at Sanibel Island's Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, I overheard a person nearby exclaim how beautiful the flamingos were. She was watching a flock of roseate spoonbills. Spoonbills are wading birds that are related to ibises and they're among South Florida's truly special birds, but they are not close relatives of flamingos. The connection between these birds that results in such occasional misidentifications is that both birds are pink. A roseate spoonbill is a little over two-and-a-half feet tall while a flamingo is nearly four feet tall. The spoonbill has a long, straight bill that ends with a rounded spatula tip that it uses for quickly grabbing the small animals it eats. Flamingos have a Roman-nosed heavy bill that is lined with thin plate-like structures that are used by the flamingos to strain very tiny plants and animals from the water. While both birds are long-necked, long-legged, and social, the often graceful curves of a flamingo's neck are unmistakable.
- Scope and Content:
- Source: Flamingos 3
Length of Segment: 00:01:07
Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. If you’d like to see greater flamingos in the wild in Florida, your best bet is to arrange a boat tour from Flamingo at Everglades National Park or to hike to the end of the 1.6 mile long Snake Bight Trail near Flamingo. The flamingos are most often seen from October through February and are usually seen at a great distance out on the mud flats. If you hike the Snake Bight Trail, go prepared for the distance, the mosquitoes, and the spectacular views of the coastal Everglades and its wading birds. While the characteristic pink plumage, ‘S’-curved neck, and long legs of a resting flamingo are hard to miss, keep your eyes on the sky, too. Flamingos fly with their long necks stretched nearly straight out and with their long legs trailing nearly straight behind. While a flamingo's body is bright pink, in flight, the greater flamingo shows us its long pointed wings with pink linings and a trailing edge of black flight feathers. Immature flamingos are generally much paler than older birds.
- Scope and Content:
- Source: Flamingos 4
Length of Segment: 00:01:15
Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. The abrupt downward bend in a flamingo's bill seems strange when the bird's head is raised, almost giving the appearance of a perpetual frown. But if you turn the frown upside down, you get a great smile and that's exactly what a flamingo does. A flamingo holds its head and bill upside down as it feeds. The top of the downward curved portion of its bill is held near the bottom. With its bill just slightly open, it uses its very muscular tongue as a pump, pulling water into its mouth where tiny creatures are filtered out by plate-like structures of varying sizes, concentrating the food which the flamingo then swallows. Flamingos can be found around the world in the tropics. There are five species of flamingos and the straining plates in each flamingo species' bills are unique, making each a specialist on foods of a particular size. Ours, the greater flamingo, takes the largest food, including very tiny shrimp-like creatures, algae, and occasionally, the smallest of fishes.
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- Resource Identifier:
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