Flamingo, (order Phoenicopteriformes), any of six species of tall, pink wading birds with thick downturned bills. Flamingos have slender legs, long, graceful necks, large wings, and short tails. They range from about 90 to 150 cm (3 to 5 feet) tall.
Flamingos are highly gregarious birds. Flocks numbering in the hundreds may be seen in long, curving flight formations and in wading groups along the shore.
Flamingos are often seen standing on one leg. Various reasons for this habit have been suggested, such as regulation of body temperature, conservation of energy, or merely to dry out the legs.
The nest is a truncated cone of muddy clay piled up a few inches in a shallow lagoon; both parents share the monthlong incubation of the one or two chalky-white eggs that are laid in the hollow of the cone. Downy white young leave the nest in two or three days and are fed by regurgitation of partly digested food by the adults. Subadults are whitish, acquiring the pink plumage with age.
