Behavioral activity patterns of adult and juvenile Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) with alteration of climatic pattern at Uchalli Lake, Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

A study was carried out at Uchalli Lake, District Khushab on Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) to find their behavioral activity pattern. The hypothesis that local climatic temperature affects the wintering behavior of Greater Flamingos was tested. Data were collected for a period of 3 days in March and 10 days in April using focal animal analysis. Each day was divided into four periods (7-8 a.m., 10-11 a.m., 1-2 p.m., and 4-5 p.m.). Activity patterns included characters like feeding, resting, flying, walking, preening, aggression, and alert. Results showed that feeding was the major activity for adults (51.06%) and juveniles (56.51%). Juveniles spent more time (t = - 2.02, p < 0.05) feeding than adults. There was a highly significant difference (t = 3.20, p < 0.01) in alert between adults and juveniles across time periods. Adults spent more time alert (8.3%) than juveniles (4.49%). Only aggression and alert in adults and walking and alert in juveniles was found significantly correlated to change with temperature. The findings of the present study highlighted the need of in-depth eco-ethological study of Greater Flamingo and hydrology of wetland.

Exploring the Effect of the COVID-19 Zoo Closure Period on Flamingo Behaviour and Enclosure Use at Two Institutions

“…It is important to note that although there was a significant reduction in feeding between zoo closure and reopening, feeding time was low during the closure period for the Chilean Flamingos (15.6% during closure). Wild Greater Flamingos spent around 51% of their daytime activity budget feeding [37] and zoo flamingos overall are noted as spending less time feeding when compared to wild birds [40]. This suggests that the birds were feeding outside of observation periods (e.g., morning or late evening) during both zoo closure and opening periods and that there was no drastic alteration to feeding behaviour when visitors returned.…”

“…Taken together, our results show that alteration in visitor numbers experienced by Greater and Chilean Flamingos was associated with few behavioural changes in their activity and enclosure usage. Both flocks displayed activity budgets potentially analogous to their wild [36,37] and captive [14,38,39] counterparts, spending most of their time from 10:00 am to 16:30 pm resting, preening, or feeding [40] (although limited feeding activity in Chilean Flamingos is discussed later). Both flocks showed a preference to occupy specific zones of their enclosure that were both easily visible to visitors and close to public viewing areas; Greater Flamingos, zones 1 and 4, and Chilean Flamingos zone 5.…”

Intra‐annual variation in activity budgets of a wild Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis) population in Southern Brazil

“…Besides that, we also detected a significant variation among the months of the studies, with an increase in inactive displays during June and August, and an increase of more active behaviours during September and October. As we discussed above, these differences can be explained by two main reasons: the influence of winter climatic conditions on behaviour and the arrival of new individuals in the population at the beginning of spring (Deville et al 2014;Naz et al 2018;). Endothermic animals spend more time in less energy expenditure behaviours in cold and windy conditions to avoid heat loss and unnecessary exposure to less adequate conditions that have negative impacts on the animal's physiology, which explains the decrease in active behaviour of flamingos in the winter (Deville et al 2014).…”