The ancient country of Loulan, known as "Pompey in the Desert", was once a small country that flourished during the struggle between the Han and the Xiongnu. There is a legend in the ancient country in the wind and sand: there is a kind of sacred bird, and its birth is the gospel of this country. When his wings are full, he will fly south. Until you reach the South Flame Mountain, light a fire with your own feathers, take off the fire, and bring it back to the country. It is equivalent to the ancient Greek legend of Prometheus. When he returned, the people were amazed at his appearance, as if two iron pillars had propped up a large fireball, burning fiercely— flaming birds!
The people chanted its name. Unfortunately, the ruins of Loulan buried in the desert cannot prove the authenticity of the legend. Today, the only people in Xinjiang who have been witnessed are the lost birds in the flamingo migration army.
Pink, a pleasing color, is especially cute when women in the flower season are decorated with pink. They are the pink little students of the birds, and they are the welcome ladies who stand tall. The jade neck is slender, the legs are slender, the beak is large and the built-in is exquisite, and it is a living filtration machine. But none of this made me say words like love, only because the pink feathers draped over the body were truly beautiful and moving, and the eyes of the gods were also dyed red pink.
Flamingos, also known as flamingos and flamingos, precisely because of their long neck and slender feet that resemble stork-like cranes, differing in that their young chicks are more like geese, adult birds have webbeds, feathers with grease to be waterproof, and their calls are very similar to geese, surprisingly, their DNA test results are most similar to those of storks. Perhaps because they evolved too early to converge with the birds of their descendants.
The classification of flamingos has always been a major problem in academia, and what I prefer is the division of 6 genera, including the American Red Stork, the Chilean Red Stork, the Andean Red Stork, the Peruvian Red Stork, the Great Red Stork and the Little Red Stork.
The American Red Stork, also known as the Caribbean Red Stork, was once listed as the same species as the Great Red Stork, and its main distribution is found on the Judean Peninsula in Mexico, off the coast of Colombia, Venezuela and nearby islands, Cuba and the Turkke islands, Hispaniola and the northern Caribbean Sea in the Bahamas. They are the only flamingos that occur naturally in North America. At 120-140 cm in height, it is full of red, and its red color is the most red of all kinds, almost out of the category of pink. But it is precisely because of this fiery red that the Bahamians are honored to worship it as the national bird, as if it has suddenly become a symbol of wealth, and because the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the world today.
The Chilean red stork, second only in redness to the American Red Stork, lives mainly in Chile, Peru and Argentina. The most obvious feature of the body is the color of the foot, and the whole foot is a faint yellow except for the knee joint and the sole of the foot is red. They prefer to inhabit the shallow waters of the mountain saline lakes at an altitude of 4,500 meters, swimming and eating are inseparable from this watery place, where the black beak loves to eat algae and insects.
The Andean Red Stork, as the name suggests, lives only in the Andes Mountains on the border of Chile and Peru and prefers to stay on the beach. They are about 120 cm tall, their beaks and feet are fresh egg-like yellow, and they have no hind toes on their feet, which is the easiest feature to distinguish them from other flamingos. The Andean Red Stork is similar in size to the Chilean Red Stork, with differences in morphology, in addition to the above two points, as well as the sparse black spots on the axils of the shoulder feathers.
The Peruvian Red Stork, which was considered extinct by the scientific community in 1924, was finally rediscovered in 1957. The Peruvian Red Stork is also known as the James Red Stork or the Ponta Red Stork. The Range of the Andean Red Stork is even smaller , and can only be found in a small area of the Andean Mountains , which is very hidden. It is 100 cm tall, a pink body, dark red markings running across its back and neck, black spots on its wings, red skin around its eyes, and its feet are like elongated carved red bricks.
The flamingos that people see with the naked eye are always pink, but who knows that their feathers are as white as cranes, but they are too fond of eating the algae growing in the saline lake, and the astaxanthin (chitin) carried by these algae will make it pink whether it runs to plankton, fish and shrimp or flamingos, but flamingos eat more, and the body is rich in astaxanthin, the more obvious it is. It is said that the fallen pink feathers will soon fade and fade back to their original white.
Say goodbye to the Americas and look at Africa, and you realize that this is the meeting place for flamingos. The rift valleys of Kenya and Tanzania are home to the largest flock of birds in the world today, with an overall population of four million. Among them, the largest number of flamingos is in Kuru Lake on the equatorial line, which is rumored to be the "paradise of flamingos".
Although the Great Flamingo is the most widely distributed flamingo, the Flamingo can be seen elsewhere, and it cannot be shaken that it is the only one who can witness the beauty of the birds and one of the wonders of the world. The Great Red Stork is the largest flamingo, 130 cm tall, with a black beak, darker wings than pink feathers, and a paler pink body than the little red stork.
The little flamingo is the most abundant flamingo, and the easiest thing for people to see is also the little flamingo, they are slender, compared to the big flamingo, it is simply a small witch, the shortest flamingo. And when they gather in thousands, you must open your eyes, otherwise you will only drift with this wave after wave, wave after wave of pink waves, and your mind will be swallowed up by undulating waves!
When your eyes are wide open, you will witness a grand ballet performance. The ballet dancers on this lake are not dancing water ballet, ice ballet, nor ballet on the stage, which is the beauty interpreted with the passion of life. Every swing of the head, every tiptoe, every shake of the body, the melody is naturally danced. Every action will make you deeply immersed in the burning fire, unable to extricate yourself...
Qing Shu, May 26, 2013.