Pretty flamingos

Today we visited a place I have long wished to see: the national wetland centre at Llanelli, near Swansea. It's one of nine such nature reserves in the UK, aimed at conserving the wildlife of the wetland habitat that has drastically diminished over recent decades.

Birds are the most obvious benefactors from these reserves which are all sited close to waterways. This one is on the estuary of the River Loughor/Afon Llwchwr before it enters Carmarthen Bay. In winter it's home to around 50,000 migratory birds but it also maintains a captive population of swans, ducks and other waterbirds from all over the world, some of which are highly endangered in the wild. It was these we concentrated on since they are both accessible and relatively tame. A couple of dedicated volunteers led a tour around the ponds and talked about the different species.

It was fascinating to meet so many beautiful and unusual birds at close quarters but for me the high spot had to be these Caribbean flamingos. Of all the flamingo species they have the richest colour, produced by the carotene in their diet of shrimp and larvae. They are highly sociable birds and like to gather in dense colonies as here - some of the males, such as the one on the right, were already displaying with wings outstretched to attract attention from prospective mates. We were told that they lay single eggs on a cone of mud but, since greedy gulls can be a problem here, the fertile eggs are removed to an incubation house and replaced with artificial ones until hatched.

We didn't have time to walk out to the wild habitat zone because we wanted to go and look for the graves of the two innocent bystanders killed by soldiers when the army was called in to control Llanelli's striking railways workers in 1911 (as recounted in Guinea Pig Zero's blip of today.)
We accomplished that so all in all it was a very successful day, right down to the fish and chips we got for supper.

This takes me right back! Manfred Mann