Recently, the American flamingo of the Shanghai Zoo was successfully bred naturally for the first time, and a total of three couples of flamingos gave birth to young birds. The successful breeding of the American flamingo was placed in the exhibition area of the entry bird park after the introduction of the Shanghai Zoo in the second half of 2018.
Less than 3 years after falling into "Shanghai", the good news of successful breeding was transmitted
As early as 2016, the American red ibises in the Crane Pavilion of the Shanghai Zoo also had the experience of natural breeding, but unfortunately the young birds did not survive. Therefore, the success of this breeding is even more valuable.
Since the American flamingos in the wild are mainly distributed in South America, the average annual temperature is higher than that of Shanghai. In order to make these "strangers" of the American red ibises adapt to life in Shanghai, in the wet and cold winter of Shanghai, the breeders installed 2 large nest boxes in the bird park in advance, with built-in adjustable heaters for heating. In the winter of 2018, the red ibises concentrated on the top of the nest box for heating, and in the winter of 2019, the red ibises have fully adapted to the temperature of the bird park and began to leave the location of the nest box and find another good place.
Hard nesting The Red Ibises begin to build a "new house"
In the spring of 2020, this group of red ibises nested in the bird park, but unfortunately, because of the first nesting, the technology was not mature, the nest was not strong, and it was blown to the ground on a stormy night, so it did not successfully breed last year.
In April, keepers discovered that the ibises mated, and in mid-to-late April they began nesting. When building a nest, the red ibis will choose the appropriate branch near the nest site, or directly break the small branch on the branch with its mouth. Both male and female birds are involved in nesting, most of which are selected by the male, and nesting is mainly the work of the female.
Debut with baby Immediately start the "second child" project
On May 9, the keeper felt that he heard the cries of birds in nest 2, and then crouched next to the nest with a camera, and finally found the little guy under the body of the parent bird, furry, and the beak was still pink and pink. The American Flamingo is a late-adult bird, and newborn little ones need to be fed by their parents before they can eat.
The flamingos fed by the parent birds develop rapidly, and at 20 days of age, the young birds can already stand independently next to the nest, although at this time they still have to be fed by the mother, but the size is close to two-thirds of the adult birds. At 33 days of age, the young ibises flew down from their nests. At present, the eldest parents have now begun to incubate the second nest of eggs, looking forward to the smooth birth of their second child.
Bird Park welcomes American Red Ibis", "Baby Tide"
At the same time, the keepers observed that under nest 2, another couple of flamingos had also begun to nest. The second couple, the red ibis, also successfully gave birth to a small baby in late May, and now the young birds have been free to move around in the bird park, sometimes chasing the black water chickens in the bird park to run around the garden.
A red elf who is often "misread and misidentified"
In addition to the long beak of the gray-black, the American red ibis, the whole body is bright red, the color is warm, is one of the world's reddest color birds, mainly inhabiting South America, is an endangered, rare bird, they are trinidad's national birds, has a high ornamental value.
The American Flamingo is red in color and flashes like a red flame in front of the eyes, and many tourists will mistakenly think that it is a "flamingo". Other tourists will pronounce the American red ibis (huán) as the American red stork (guàn), although the two have similar names and the same origin, but they are two completely different birds. At present, there are nearly 30 American red ibises living in the Entry Bird Park and Tsuruhiwa, looking forward to the arrival of tourists and friends.
The image comes from Shanghai Zoo
Text: Li Yudan
Edit: Bi Yangjing