Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus), originally uploaded by bill kralovec.
I stopped today and took some photos of the flamingos feeding in the mud flats. There were several colonies near the Sitra Bridge right outside of the capital city of Manama. They seemed quite content despite the large number of cars whizzing by them. We stopped the car and I got out and crossed through a construction area to get these images. The Bahrainis don’t seem to develop their water fronts. I couldn’t believe more people were not out watching these beautiful birds. They turned out to be Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus).
Flamingos are very cool birds. They wade through the water with their heads upside down, filtering for food. When I went down to the rocks on the shore, I could smell and see a stream of black effluent moving through the water. I wonder if this affects the birds? Reef-Egret as well a thousands of seagulls.(http://www.hawar-islands.com/) Here is an amazing web site about the bird life on the islands of Bahrain. After looking at AJ’s photos, I need to get a better lens and camera.
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