If you have ever stamped your feet over what you were having for dinner, you probably got in big trouble. For the flamingo, however, stamping its feet is how it gets its dinner. Flamingos live around mud flats, salt lagoons, and shallow lakes where they can feed. A flamingo uses its flat, webbed feet to stir up the tiny plants and animals that live in the bottom of the water. The bird then uses its special bent bill to scoop up water and food. Its bill has ridges on the edges and points inside called lamellae, and these, along with the flamingo’s spiny tongue, filter out all the water and leave behind the algae, seeds, mollusks, crustaceans, insects and small fish the flamingo likes to eat.
Both the male and the female flamingo help to raise their young. Together, they build their nests, which are volcano-shaped mounds made of mostly mud, and they take turns sitting on the nest to incubate the egg. Usually, the female lays only one egg. A flamingo chick is born with white feathers and a flatter bill. Both parents produce something called crop milk with which they feed their chick. Crop milk is actually produced by a number of glands spread though the upper digestive tract. When the chick is about one month old, its beak begins to curve downward, and its feathers turn grey. By three months old, its bill is fully curved so that it can filter feed and take care of itself. By age one, its feathers turn pink, and by the time it turns two, it looks no different than an adult flamingo.