The Great Flamingo, also known as the Great Flamingo, is a type of flamingo that is named after the beautiful red feathers that cover its entire body. Most are found in South America and Africa, with the rest in Asia and Europe. Their favorite habitats are saline lakes, sparsely vegetated estuaries, lagoons and the seashore.
In China's thousands of years of recorded history, there seems to be no record of the great red stork. It is difficult to imagine that such a large bird will be missed by the ancients, which shows that China is indeed not the distribution area of the great red stork, or even a migration route. Although there is no record of the distribution of the Great Red Stork in China, it has appeared in Xinjiang many times in the past 20 years.
In 2011, several big red storks actually used the airport runway as water surface and landed at Urumqi Diwopu International Airport. This was their third trip to Xinjiang, and in September 1997 the Hami Forestry Department in Xinjiang acquired one in Erbao Town, Hami City, which was thought to have passed through Xinjiang by accident. In early November, due to the influence of the warm climate, another group of large red storks (about 10) flew to the outskirts of Urumqi, and one of the sub-adults was caught because of injuries, and the specimen was hidden in the Xinjiang Institute of Epidemiology. Their arrival has aroused our keen interest.
Why do the Great Red Stork appear in Xinjiang repeatedly? This also starts with their range and migration routes.
The Great Red Stork is also found in Asia, with 53 degrees 30 minutes north latitude being the northern limit of its distribution. In Asia, the Great Red Stork breeds in the lakes of Kazakhstan in summer and winters in the southern Caspian Sea and India. Therefore, the great red stork is a southward migration itinerary from the breeding ground to the wintering area, and from the north-south direction, Xinjiang is the latitude through which it migrates south and north. From the longitude point of view, Xinjiang spans 91 degrees to 96 degrees east longitude, which is close to the migration route of the Great Red Stork - 50 degrees to 85 degrees east longitude. This makes it geographically possible for the Great Red Stork to enter Xinjiang.
Geographical proximity alone is not enough, and it will take a certain amount of time for the red stork to fly into Xinjiang. In recent years, there has been a warm winter in Xinjiang, which has led to many migratory birds being reluctant to fly south, deviating from the migration route and drifting here. As a result, it is not surprising that birds such as the great red stork and the pelican are found in Xinjiang in winter.
The Great Red Stork is a large wading bird, about 106 cm tall and with a wingspan of 150 cm, the male is slightly larger than the female, with a downward curved mouth, and the upper mouth is flat and thin, covering the lower mouth like an eyelid. The neck has 19 cervical vertebrae that can be flexibly steered and bent. The Great Red Stork has a pair of slender, long legs and can forage for leisurely in the water. The whole body is covered with red feathers, and some of them also have black flying feathers, which look very gorgeous. Its eyes are red, small but sharp, and even when walking, it can see insects and other food in the water. Fossil evidence suggests that the Great Flamingo diverged as early as 30 million years ago, much earlier than most other birds.
However, the taxonomic problem of the great red stork has puzzled ornithologists for many years. According to its skeleton structure, egg white protein and life habits, the great red stork can be associated with many different birds. For example, the pelvis and rib structure of the great red stork are similar to those of cranes, the composition of the ovale protein is similar to that of herons, and the behavior habits of its young chicks are very similar to those of geese, and the adult birds have fins and waterproof feathers. Later, taxonomists divided the Great Red Stork into a separate order, the Red Stork.
Although the four are not the same, the wonderful evolution has made the Great Red Stork have unusual characteristics. In order to walk on the shoals, they need slender legs and a slender neck, because only then can they reach the ground for food. In order to keep the soles of the feet from getting stuck in the mud, a membrane (webbing) grows between the toes. The curved beak is intended to improve the effect of filtering water and thin mud. The Great Red Stork sucks up water with the upper part of its mouth instead of the lower part, and for them, this is the only way to suck in as much water as possible. The thin tongue, on the other hand, can move back and forth like a four-stroke piston, rapidly sucking in the turbid water while squeezing the water out through a side filter, leaving only what it can swallow—the filtered food. Every day, the Great Red Stork eats a quarter of its body weight.
The Great Flamingo, whether it lives in a zoo or in the wild, has one characteristic: most of the time it always stands on one leg and the other is bent under the body. This means that standing on one leg is the natural habit of the Great Red Stork, rather than being kept in a zoo due to environmental stress. There are many theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon.
There is a theory that the Great Red Stork stands on one leg to save energy. Some ornithologists believe that the Great Flamingo also stands on one leg when sleeping, with half of their brains asleep and the other half awake to maintain balance in their bodies. Bending one leg under the body is to conserve the heat of the body, because this minimizes the area of skin exposed to the air. Alternating legs can also give the legs rest and promote blood circulation in the legs. This theory of blood circulation is recognized by many scientists. The long legs of the Great Red Stork need a strong circulatory system to support the flow of blood from the heart to the whole body, especially when the Great Red Stork stands in cold water, and the heart is forced to deliver blood to the legs to maintain its temperature. So, bending one leg under the body can reduce the burden on the heart.
Another theory is that standing on one leg can help the Flamingo disguise itself—one leg looks like a reed or blade of grass. Opponents argue, however, that the Flamingo's prey is crustaceans and shellfish, and that they do not need to camouflage themselves when preying. And the body of the Great Red Stork is very conspicuous pink, and it is unlikely that they will succeed in disguising themselves as reeds or blades of grass.
There is also a theory that the Great Red Stork stands on one leg to run faster in the event of an attack. If this is the case, then the giant red stork standing on one leg should take off faster than the big red stork standing on two legs. However, researchers' measurements of the time it takes for both to go from standing still to starting running show that this is not the case. In addition, studies have shown that the Giant Red Stork does not stand on one leg to maintain balance in windy environments. The big red stork's signature action, the mystery of standing on one leg, like many mysteries in nature, has yet to be definitively answered.
The great red stork is born with gray or white feathers, and as the great red stork grows up, the color of the feathers will become pink, and this pink often changes, sometimes dark and light, and sometimes even returns to white. Why do the colours of the great red stork feathers vary so much?
Through years of research, scientists have finally unveiled the mystery of the discoloration of the feathers of the Great Red Stork. They found that whether the feathers of adult flamingos grew pink or white depended entirely on the food they ate. The main food of the great red stork, algae and crustaceans, contains a pigment called carotenoids, and enzymes from the liver of the great red stork break down the carotenoids into pink and orange pigment particles, which are stored on the feathers, mouth and legs of the great red stork, giving them beautiful colors. Some large red storks eat algae directly, and the color of the body is bright and beautiful, and some eat small animals that feed on algae, and the color of the body is relatively dull. Adult red storks will feed their chicks red "milk", in fact, the secret of red "milk" is that it contains carobactin (one of the carotenoids), so the color presented is red. Chicks store these pigments in their livers, and when they grow up, they transfer them to their feathers, turning them beautiful red.
For the opposite sex, a large flamingo with bright feathers means that it is very healthy, because only then will it have leisure and enough time to dress itself more beautifully, and if paired with such an object, it should be able to increase the chances of reproductive success. The researchers did find that the brightly colored Flamingo began to breed earlier than its dull-colored counterparts, and the earlier they started breeding, the more they were able to occupy superior breeding sites.
Extended reading: "One Bird, One World" | Chemical Industry Press