Flamingos fly over the alien-like panorama of Kenya’s Lake Magadi

Flamingos fly throughout a lake of multicoloured swirls within the Nice Rift valley on this shot by US photographer Phillip Chang

By Gege Li

A FLOCK of flamingos flies throughout this otherworldly background within the Nice Rift valley.

Phillip Chang, an novice photographer from the US, took this shot from a helicopter about 150 metres above Lake Magadi in Kenya. The lake is alkaline due to sodium carbonate rising from scorching springs in its mattress.

The colored swirls are attributable to mineral disturbance. “It was the wet season, so the water was deeper than regular,” says Chang. “The colors had been created by the quartz or siliceous chert and particles floating on prime of the water.”

Flamingos develop their signature pink plumage because of carotenoid pigments within the algae and invertebrates they feed on. Rosier feathers are an indication of fine well being and entice mates.

A current examine by Laura Soole at College Centre Sparsholt, UK, and Paul Rose at WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre, a wildlife sanctuary in Gloucestershire, UK, discovered that flamingos’ color may give a sign of their aggression (Ethology, doi.org/dzbj).

The pinker flamingos on the sanctuary are typically extra more likely to provoke fights over meals than their paler counterparts. The pair say that, within the wild, this behaviour might assist flamingos compete with the tons of of 1000’s and generally tens of millions of different birds discovered on the shores of alkaline lakes in sub-Saharan Africa.