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A bird whose colour is entirely a matter of diet.
The pink is carotenoid, drawn from algae and brine shrimp and deposited in the feathers. A flamingo fed a different diet fades to white — the colour is a live readout of the health of the lake.
The bill is held upside down and works as a pump, drawing water through lamellae fine enough to strain out single-celled algae. It is one of the few bird bills that is genuinely a piece of industrial filtration equipment.
Frames in the archive
Full gallery
Filtration
Little Rann of Kutch.
Ten Thousand Filters
Bahrain shallows — the lake turned pink.
Where we photograph it
The open shelf
More frames of the greater flamingo
Streamed live from the Commons Quality Images archive, fifteen at a time. For viewing here — each frame remains its photographer’s.
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Developing the next fifteen…
