Andean Flamingo

Phoenicoparrus andinus

The only flamingo with yellow feet. Filters algae at 14,000 feet in Andean salt lakes where almost nothing else survives.

Population: No precise current figure; historically ~34,000–38,700 (2010 international simultaneous census counted 38,675), down from an estimated 50,000–100,000 in the mid-1980s to ~34,000 by the mid-1990s, possibly stabilizing 1997–2010 — BirdLife/IUCN states the overall population size has not been precisely quantified due to high survey uncertainty
Habitat: High-altitude Andean salt lakes and alkaline lagoons with soft sediment bottoms, roughly 2,300–4,950 m (typically 3,500–4,500 m); moves to lower-elevation wetlands in winter
Fun fact: The Andean Flamingo is the only flamingo species with yellow legs and a distinctive red spot between its nostrils, and it breeds colonially by the thousands at remote highland salt lakes, where chicks are raised communally in large groups called crèches.
Range: High Andean plateaus of southern Peru, northern Chile, southwestern Bolivia, and northwestern Argentina, breeding at sites such as Laguna Colorada, Laguna de Salinas, and Salar de Atacama
Diet: Filter-feeds mainly on diatoms and blue-green algae, plus small invertebrates, straining sediment at the water-sediment interface with its deep, downward-curved lower mandible
Size: 1.2 m
Wingspan: 1.5 m
Lifespan: 30 years

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