Behold a deal with for the eyes! Tens of 1000’s of pink flamingos have amassed within the wetlands of southern France together with their offspring nonetheless missing flamboyant plumage.
The long-legged birds resembling ballerinas in tutus have lengthy drawn vacationers to the marshes within the Camargue area that has served as France’s salt mine since Roman occasions. However the numbers of pink flamingos this yr stands out as the highest since consultants started protecting data 45 years in the past, mentioned Thierry Marmol, the guardian of the huge ecosystem.
France’s two months of strict confinement to include the coronavirus could be the explanation.
Consultants counting on aerial images estimated that 25,000 flamingo {couples}, or 50,000 grownup birds, settled within the space this yr, Marmol mentioned. About 12,000 infants have been counted. “That’s historic,” he mentioned, stressing that little ones are laborious to depend.
The numbers of pink flamingos stands out as the highest since consultants started protecting data 45 years in the past, mentioned Thierry Marmol, guardian of the lands.
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“Perhaps the confinement helped to make a great yr,” Marmol mentioned. “It’s apparent that with confinement there have been no disturbances. There have been no airplanes, no noise in any respect.”
It’s nonetheless too quickly to substantiate that the anti-virus lockdown was a consider what he mentioned is “probably the greatest 4 years of all time” for pink flamingos within the Salins.
Marmol has watched over 8,000 hectares (19,700 acres) across the commune of Aigues-Mortes for the previous 35 years, dwelling on the land “like a trapper in America.”
He’s a eager observer of the birds, fauna and flora that draw ornithologists and different consultants for discipline work. This yr’s bumper crop of pink flamingos is a deal with even for him.
The Salins, with its particularly salty water, additionally provides France with tons of salt. Aigues-Mortes is about 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) from Arles, the closest giant city.
Flamingo consultants spent some three hours Wednesday becoming 320 child birds with two bands – one plastic, one metallic – so scientists can observe their migration.
When autumn arrives, many might be migrating to hotter climate in Spain, Italy, Turkey or North Africa. The bands are “like a license plate,” Marmol mentioned. The plastic band permits ornithologists to identify them with binoculars or a telescope. The knowledge is relayed to scientists monitoring the birds in facilities world wide. Every nation makes use of a chosen coloration for the bands.
Fortunately for pink flamingo aficionados, about half will select to remain behind. Who is aware of why?
Infants should wait for his or her plumes to develop. Adults and others able to take off might resolve the approaching winter gained’t be chilly so “they take their probability and keep,” Marmol mentioned.
He recalled France’s very chilly winter of 2003, when 1000’s of pink flamingos have been discovered lifeless.
“They made a nasty alternative that yr,” Marmol mentioned.