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

Abstract

Assessing animal behaviour is essential for understanding their relationship with the environment and assisting in the management and conservation of species in natural habitats, especially those that present large range distribution and occupy very dynamic environments. The Chilean Flamingo (Phoenicopterus chilensis, Aves: Phoenicopteridae) breeds in the temperate regions of South America, going from Ecuador to the south of Argentina, but moves to regions on the southern coast of Brazil and Uruguay during the non-breeding season. To understand activity patterns and behavioural variations on wild Chilean Flamingos in Brazil, we carried out monthly field trips to the Lagoa do Peixe National Park, on the middle coast of Rio Grande do Sul state, between May and November 2019, totalling 99.8 total hours of observation. Forty-one different behaviours were detected, divided into six categories: Feeding, Locomotion, Resting, Preening, Social Agonist and Social Non-Agonist. A significant variation in frequency, total duration and mean duration was detected for the behavioural categories over the months, mainly in the social categories, possibly indicating a strong influence of climatic aspects, such as temperature, rainfall and wind, but also of population aspects, such as flock density and stage of the reproductive cycle, in the behaviours observed in the lagoon. We also detected a variation in behavioural richness and active behaviours among the months, indicating that contranuptial areas like Lagoa do Peixe can be used for more than only feeding and resting.

Updated bird list of Lagoa do Peixe National Park, one of the most important South American wetlands

“…Furthermore, in 1992, the park was also considered as part of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve and, in 1999, was classified as Advanced Post of Atlantic Forest Reserve, recognizing its importance to the conservation not only of wetlands but also of associated forests (Moraes, 2009;Paludo et al, 2022). Besides that, the park is one of the only places in Brazil that maintains a resident population of Chilean Flamingos Phoenicopterus chilensis Molina, 1782 that can be seen all year round, increasing in size during the spring (Delfino & Aldana-Ardila, 2020;Delfino & Carlos, 2022). Other animals also live in the area, many of them related to the wetland environments or grasslands from Southern Brazil, including crustaceans, mammals, fishes, and turtles, many of them also currently threatened (Knak, 1999).…”